Assignment #1

PPol 603
Due: Thursday, 6 September 2012, 9:30 a.m.

Type up your answers. Read the section in the syllabus on Academic Honesty and Plagiarism (here) to make sure you are giving proper credit to those you work with and/or the text(s).

Solve the following problems. Show all of your work, but keep your answers concise. For Problems 1-3, showing your work is writing the commands in the .do file. For Problem 4, showing your work is showing the steps you took to obtain the answer. On Problem 4, highlight your (final) answer to distinguish it from your other numbers and text. Include a copy of your input or output, when appropriate. However, do not include unnecessary output, and format any output so that it is easily readable. (For example, convert Stata output, logs and do-files to a small fixed-width font, such as Courier 8 or 10, with single-spacing.) Explanation includes statistical and substantive explanation (explain so that a statistical layperson can understand it, and so that a statistical analyst will see your erudition).

  1. {25 points} Download the Stata .do file found here. After you download the file, change the file extension from .txt to .do (i.e. from assign1p1.txt to assign1p1.do). Follow the directions in the file.
  2. {25} Download the Stata .do file found here. After you download the file, change the file extension from .txt to .do. Follow the directions in the file.
  3. {25} Download the Stata .do file found here. After you download the file, change the file extension from .txt to .do. Follow the directions in the file.
  4. {25} Do Problem 2.6 in Stock and Watson. We are doing this problem so that given a table of data, we can calculate the difference in the unemployment rate of college graduates and non-college graduates, or the difference in the fatality rate of bicycle accidents whether the bicyclist was wearing a helmet or not (and calculate how many bicyclists are wearing helmets), or the difference in how frequently democracies go to war compared to non-democracies. It is also to get us thinking about how one variable depends on another variable. In part c., only calculate E(Y|X=1). In part d., only do (i). In part e., do both parts. (Hint: if you can do the first part, the second part is easy.) Remember in part f., "Explain" means explain so that a layperson can understand.

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