24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great equations, bad explanations, November 6, 2003
The subject of econometrics is difficult for the beginner. I have yet to encounter a text that does a great job at explaining both the concepts and the math required to be proficient in this field. I completed three courses, two undergraduate and one graduate level, for which this book was the required text. Like most of my classmates I was never able to fully comprehend the concepts behind the numbers using this text alone. Now that I have a better grasp of econometrics I will vehemently suggest that this text provides a poor verbal description of what a student is actually doing when analyzing data. I found myself reading the chapters 2 or 3 times and still felt unsure of what was going on. Where this book is strong is in its presentation of equations. I highly recommend supplementing this text with Peter Kennedy's, "A Guide to Econometrics," which gives excellent verbal explanations but de-emphasizes the math. These two texts together make a great study for a difficult subject.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Deceivingly more information than you think - half way between introductory and advanced, March 6, 2006
In sum: This book is half-way in between an introductory text (i.e. Wooldridge - Introductory Econometrics) and an advanced graduate textbook (Greene - Econometric Analysis).
Wooldridge's introductory textbook is certainly better suited for a first class in econometrics. Pindyck and Rubinfeld provide an excellent complement however, particularly for mid-level graduate students. Appendices show the matrix form derivations of most estimators, and provides a treatment of the GMM estimator, neither of which you will find in an purely introductory course. Really the appendices are where the more advanced treatments are offered to the interested reader.
Sections on forcasting and time series models in this book are greatly superior than what is offered in introductory texts (which usually is no presentation at all).
Pindyck and Rubinfeld do not waste a word in this textbook. There's a discussion on pretty much all the estimators, although some of these are short (one paragraph and no equations for the ordered probit - but you can't have it all!).
If you know nothing about econometrics then this is not the book for you. I was forced to buy it in my introductory econometrics class and had no idea what was going on. Then I had a competent instructor and lots of Wooldridge reading. This book helped me through Master's level econometrics and makes for good subway reading, but will definitely be shy of what you need for a PhD in economics. For PhD you will need Greene OR [Hamilton (1994) AND Wooldridge's Cross Section and Panel Data book].
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
econometrics for the statistically literate, August 4, 2000
This is a very good text for an undergraduate student taking a first course in regression analysis and modelling. It is very comprehensive and has some very good examples for a beginner. The only problem is that the field of stochastic modelling is very dynamic so some of the material covered in the book has become outdated.
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