L02: Comparisons Part I:Indexing, Facts and Fictions

TEACHERS PAGE -- CONTAINS RESOURCES FOR USE BY TEACHERS.

OLD Version of Lecture which covers Paasche and Laspayres Indices. There was consensus that these topics were too difficult for beginning students, so the NEW lecture 2 was modified to DROP these topics and focus on the main issue: Some numbers are facts while others are fictions. Material below overlaps with material in current new lecture, but has additional material on Laspayres and Paasche indices, which can be studied by interested students

LAB has been updated and simplified, in accordance with student experience. 10th Feb 2014

APPENDIX ADDED which clarifies two issues that students have trouble with in this lecture:

1: Clarify REAL measures versus IMAGINARY measures.

2: Clarify Calculation of Paasche Index.

This lecture does the following things:

A: Defines the subject matter of Statistics as a branch of rhetoric: how to make persuasive arguments with numbers.

B: Shows that there are two types of data, one type measures some aspect of reality while the other type is ficitional and imaginary. Most arguments use the second type of data -- which creates an illusion of obectivity while actually incorporating lots of subjective, arbitrary and value laden elements.

COMPONENTS OF THIS LECTURE:

1. PPT Slides + Audio File for each slide [1h 22m] See LINK to view or download .

2. Transcript: Writeup of the Audio Files for each slide: ISM02Trans.docx (Below)

3. Lecture Writeup -- the TEXTBOOK chapter writeup for this lecture. ISM02Lect.docx (below)

4. LAB: EXCEL exercises on Index Numbers. ISM02lab.docx + ISM02 Lab.xslx (data for lab)

5. QUIZ: Q02.docx (below)

6. Supplements: Economic Recovery by Statistical Manipulation. see file ISM02 Sup GDP Manipulations.docx below.

To view this lecture online or download lecture Video File please visit this link.

This lecture is a presentation in the OPEN OFFICE format, which has both sound and slides so that it is a complete lecture. To listen to it, you must have open office installed on your computer. This is a free download from http://www.openoffice.org/

Alternatively, you can watch the PPT slides and play the MP3 files manually. These are labelled L02Sxx where xx is the number of the slide. The MP3 files can be downloaded from here:

To download the ENTIRE folder at one go, click on the OPTIONS button on the right hand side upper corner -- one of the options is to download folder.