Customer Reviews

A Guide to Modern Econometrics

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

 

 

I'm an econ grad student - and I'm always looking for books that give me insight on econometrics. This book does precisely that! Verbeek writes econometrics like others write novels, he develops the models clearly and logically. This book should be used in graduate and undergraduate programs everywhere. It's also good for the practicing economist who wants to brush up on econometrics. It's hard to find a text that offers this much intuition and still gives a good solid mathematical treatment of the subject. I've also used the standard "kennedy" book (too simplified), the Greene's textbook - technically thorough but doesn't do much for intuitive understanding - Verbeek's book is much more readable and useful in my opinion.

The strength of this book lies in the nice balance between mathematics and intuition. Although Wooldridge is easier to understand and better in the intuition department, he doesn't prepare you as well as Verbeek for what is yet to come: books like Econometric Analysis by Greene or Econometric Society Monographs. Verbeek uses much of the language found in scientific articles and more advanced works, without making the explanations unneccesary difficult.

If your goal is, however, not to go much deeper than introductory econometrics, then do yourself a favour and buy Introductory Econometrics by Wooldridge.

I used to think that the book written by Davidson & Mackinnon (2004) is the best graduate book in econometrics. After reading this book, however, I changed my mind. This book is better for a number of reasons. First, it covers standard material (rather than non-standard one such as the geometry of OLS, artificial regressions, etc); this tailors to the need of most readers. Second, it covers OLS quickly and moves on to alternative estimators (rather than spending two chapters on hypothesis testing and confidence intervals, which is quite redundant). Third, it derives an estimator in a formal way (i.e. optimizing a particular objective function rather using the informal method of moment). Fourth, it complements econometric methods with empirical examples (rather than discussing econometric methods alone); this facilitates reader's understanding. Finally, its exposition is crystally clear (Bravo!).

One critique: An ideal graduate text should contain enough material for two semesters. However, this book is too short for two semesters but too long for one semester. So, I would suggest that he add two things. First, please expand the material on GMM and compare it to OLS as the organizing theme. Second, please add the material on bootstrap and Monte Carlo methods.

I live in Denmark and had purchased the book in USA. The danish custom authorities charged me 50$ tax, (which is close to the price i paid for the book). Amazon reimbursed me for the full amount!

The book is also good, all the relevant math, but a bit wordy (as it is often the case with american non-fiction books.. Maybe they get paid for the amount of pages they write.. :) )

Also the layout could use a bit of work, just to make it eaiser to jump around in it after reading it.

I have been going through the first 40 pages and it looks really easy to follow...which is not automatic given the subject..

I like the book because it's among the few econometrics books that I can understand by the frist read, but as the book title says it is only a "guide", it does not include anything about survival models, which I think is an important part of modern econometrics.

One of the very few econometric books that are possible to read for non-mathematicians. Recommend to everyone interested in econometrics.

The book is great. However, the initial advertisement indicates the 3rd edition of Verbeek, also available as an e-book. So, I quickly purchased it. If I would have taken a bit more time, I would have noticed that the Kindle edition was the 2nd, which I already have in paperback. I am still happy to have it. However, Amazon--please be more explicit in your initial link that the Kindle edition is the 2nd edition, not the 3rd!!! (I just checked and the Kindle is still the 2nd, not the 3rd edition.)

this book was awful. I think it was an effort to give a short explanation. However, they seem to have shortened it by taking out the explanation and leaving just the equations, written in greek letters and other symbols that certainly deserve to be explained. My top grudge against this book, though, is that they did not bother to edit the equations so that matrix notation was distinguished from non-matrix notation - apparently they assume you know which x should represent one variable, a vector of variables, or a whole matrix of variables - which is eggregiously unreasonable, particularly for an introductory text (which this is). ALL other econometrics books note matrices with either bold or underlined text.
If you are assigned this book, buy it if you must, but do yourself a favor and buy Robert Kennedy's A Guide to Econometrics to go with it, so that you will actually know what is going on.