Customer Reviews

Econometric Models and Economic Forecasts

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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].

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.

This was my first econometrics textbook 7 years ago. Not difficult at all, but covers the most important material for econometrics students at the beginner's level. Good structure and good examples.You may not be able to find everything there, because it is not "advanced" version. A little bit outdated. Newly developed ideas and technichs are not covered.

I'm giving this book 5 stars largely to balance out the somewhat unfair reviews that were given. For what it is -- an econometrics textbook that tries to present overview of neginning to intermediate econometrics and forecasting WITHOUT a lot of linear algebra -- it's a pretty good book. While it has its rough spots, the book has many good features. One of the really good features of this book is presenting the material with an emphasis on model building ... a very important emphasis that is too often ignored in other econometrics texts. In an ideal world, this book deserves at least an average of 4 stars and would deserve more if the readers made things more readable and better incorporated advances in econometrics since previous editions.

This is a beginners' book, and for those, I would recommend its use, but only in addition to using it with Gujarati's. Pindyck's book is very simple and well explained. Its advantage over other books is that it is concerned with forecasting, something that other basic books do not do. It is a little bit more advanced than Gujarati's but lays between that one and Maddala's book.

The notation can be hard to follow if you don't have a grasp or natural incline for statistical regression. Steps are hard to come by in some problems because too many steps are skipped for a beginner. It is almost necessary to have at least a basic statistics background before reading this.

Even though I had a background and had read ahead, I had to depend on my professor to truly understand the material at all. If your professor has an accent or goes quite fast, and if you don't have classmates you can work with, using this book alone will be more than painful.

I would suggest a supplement such as "Using Econometrics: A Practical Guide (4th Edition should suffice) [Hardcover] by Studenmund" if you are just beginning to learn about regression.

Pros:
There is quite a bit of information in this text book. It covers a large range of topics and for that you can potentially learn a lot from it. There is no fluff and no verbose paragraphs to be found in explanation. The general flow of topics in the book is pretty good and makes sense as far as build up.

Cons:
The explanations tend to lack much and there are plenty of texts out there that do a much better job (see Verbeek or Woolridge or Baltagi for econometric books). The book seems to occasionally lack syntax consistency and introduce a variable in an equation without prior explanation. Its explanations, while brief which can be good, tend to leave much to be desired and lack clarity if you don't have prior knowledge or statistics/matrix algebra background. The book is also chocked full of remarks like "it can easily be shown that " and some evaluative equation is shown.. or "it is obvious that", "its not difficult to see" and so on. If you don't immediately or obviously see the proof or derivation then you're left questioning either your intelligence or the author's pretension. The version I have doesn't include a data disk or an online repository of data for your use in analysis and modeling. Many books do.. and so that's another knock on this one because I prefer to spend my time understanding concepts and analyzing data, not typing data from a book into an econometric program.

Overall, if you run into this book at a used bookstore then I say buy it at a discount. IF you're looking for a good book to teach you econometrics or statistical modeling without first having a foundation then "it should be immediately obvious that" you should skip this and move on to a book that does a better job of explaining things.

Some mistakes in equations. but overall it is a good quality book. Time series part is not excellent. But as a entry-level book, it gives you a general idea of all kinds of knowledge you need in Econometrics.