ECON 208 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Time Series, Panel Data, Scatter Plot
12 Dec 2012
School
Department
Course
Professor
27
ECON 208 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
27 documents
Document Summary
Chapter 2 economic theory, data, and graphs. I. e. unemployment is a more important social problem than inflation. I. e. the majority of the population would prefer a policy that reduced unemployment to one that reduced inflation. Failure to define their terms/points of reference clearly. Stems from economists" failure to acknowledge the full state of their own ignorance. Public disagreement based on the positive/normative distinction. Economists must differentiate normative advice from positive facts. Laws requiring equal pay for work of equal value will make women better off. Used as a synonym for a theory. Applied to a specific quantitative formulation of a theory. As an illustrative abstraction which helps to organize our thoughts about a particular issue, not designed to generate testable hypotheses. Tested by confronting its predictions with evidence. Empirical observation leads to construction of theories. The predictions are tested by more detailed empirical observation. An alternative is to see if the hypothesis can be rejected by data.
