Exercise session 1
Course: Introductory Econometrics
Lecturer: Dmytro Vikhrov
Date: September 16, 2014.
Problem 1
Open the dataset 401ksubs located in (File− >Open data− >Sample file...).
1. Display the dataset for visual inspection. For this select all variable by pressing
Ctrl+A, then go to Data− >Display values. Explore the following commands in
Data tab: Edit values, Add observations and Dataset structure.
2. Plot the histogram of annual income (right click on inc, then choose Frequency
distribution).
3. Compute descriptive statistics (right click on inc, then Summary statistics).
4. Compute Gini coefficient for the income data (Variable− >Gini coefficient). Interpret
your findings.
5. Plot the histogram of ln income. Explain how and why it is different from the
histogram of income.
Problem 2
Now split the sample into several sub-samples.
1. Compute descriptive statistics and plot histograms for males and females (Sample− >Restrict,
based on criterion...). Interpret your findings.
2. Re-do the above exercise for married and unmarried individuals. Explain your
intuition.
Problem 3 Let’s now move to bivariate graphs. Make three scatter plots: income
against family size, income against age and financial assets against income. Further,
compute correlation coefficients for each pair of variables. Explain your intuition.
Problem 4 Now let’s add time dimension to our analysis. Open dataset greene5 1
and make time series plots of variables that you might find interesting.
Problem 5 Open dataset greene14 1 and explore the panel structure of the dataset.
Make panel plots of variable Q by company (unit).