79210 - Lab Class on Economic and Business Data

Learning outcomes

The course has the goal to provide students with the instruments to analyse case studies in economic and market analysis fields from an applied perspective. At the end of the course the student will be able to quantitatively analyse business and economic data, to select the best suited statistical methodology for the problem at hand, to implement the select methodology using the SAS software, to critically interpret empirical results.

Course contents

- Primary and secondary data for the consumer research

- Economic data and business data

- Statistical sources and economic microdata 

- Data visualization and data description

- Data quality and preliminary data management 

- Discrete choice models for the consumer behavior analysis

- Categorical variables models

- Introduction to Diff-in-Diff modelling

- Real data applications with R

Readings/Bibliography

The following textbooks can be consulted for non-mandatory additional work/research/in-depth study:

- Agresti, A. (2019). An Introduction to Categorical Data Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

- Mazzocchi, M. (2008). Statistics for Marketing and Consumer Research. Sage.

- Thulin, M. (2021). Modern Statistics with R. Eos Chasma Press.

In addition, the teacher will release on Virtuale:

- The presentations discussed during the lessons

- Additional material produced by him and used during the lessons (R scripts, data sets, toy examples, etc.)

Teaching methods

The teaching is structured upon theoretical and practical lessons, and exercises with the software R in the Lab. Each subject treated during the course will be discussed from the theoretical point of view (first) and from the practical one (then). Applications will be based on real data (economic, business, marketing data). The use of the software R will be proposed.

(See the Italian web page for further requirements about the course attendance).

Assessment methods

In order to verify and evaluate the student, there will be an oral discussion (exam) during which the student will present and discuss with the teacher his/her written essay.

The goals of the essay are:

• To prove the knowledge of the statistical techniques and methods discussed during the course
• To prove the capacity of autonomously (and critically) applying the above-mentioned methods and techniques to real data with the use of the software R
• To prove the ability of interpreting the analysis results

The essay should be based on real data and a case study chosen by the student (but previously agreed on by the teacher). The synthetic essay should be structured upon an introduction to the problem/case study, a description of the data and the main results of the analysis, followed by a critical discussion of the results.

During the oral presentation/discussion of the essay, the teacher will evaluate also the R scripts used for the analysis.

Teaching tools

- Presentations, R scripts, data sets, toy examples and additional material for the in-depth study offered by the teacher during the lessons.

- Software R available at the Lab.

- PC laptop eventually at disposal of the students.

Office hours

See the website of Riccardo D'Alberto