Economics 383H: Economics of Education

Economics of Education Teaching Notices

  • December 9, 2011:

    Here are some sample questions to help you prepare for the final exam. Just let me know if anything is unclear.

    Please find below the scores for the second writing assignment, out of 15. They are ordered by student ID number.

    992918633 13.5

    993456559 13.5

    995993359

    995999424 11.5

    996128408 11

    996128783 5.5

    996194096 14.5

    996479939 12.5

    996661483 10

    996721604 11.5

    996852106 9

    996914219 5.5

    996951008 11.5

    996952533 12.5

    997030341 11

    997542066 13.5

    (The assignments will be available for pickup on the day of the final exam.)

  • November 29, 2011: December 1 office hours

    I will be holding office hours tomorrow in KC263. But please note the time: 12 noon to 2pm. Just let me know if you have any questions.

  • November 23, 2011:

    Here is the overdue note on omitted variables and related topics. I hope everything is clear. Just let me know if not.

    I will be saying a few words about the following very interesting paper tomorrow:

    http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~mcmillan/papers/angrist_lavy.pdf

  • November 20, 2011: Morin paper

    Please find details of the second writing assignment posted below. Just let me know if you have any questions.

  • November 9, 2011: term test etc.

    Tomorrow's test is closed book. You will have 1 hour 40 minutes to complete it, though should need less.

    I have posted some sample test questions below. You should be able to do these, based on your class notes. Please let me know if you have any difficulties.

    Note: at the end of tomorrow's test, make sure you pick up the instructions for Writing Assignment 1 (also posted below). This will focus on the Krueger and Whitmore (2001) paper. The assignment is quite short, due in the following week at the start of class.

  • October 28, 2011: 'assumptions' note and inference note

    Further to our class discussion and the note describing the properties of b^ols, please find attached a short note on the four assumptions that we made in sequence. I hope everything is clear.

    I have also written the attached note that provides general background to the topic of hypothesis testing. This should supplement our class discussion -- see attached.

    And while we are at it, you might find the following short note (really, beyond the scope of this course) that discusses a truly remarkable theorem from statistics, called the Central Limit Theorem.

  • October 27, 2011: properties of the OLS slope estimator

    Building on our class discussion today, please find attached the following note. It reviews three key properties of the OLS slope estimator.

  • October 25, 2011: more sample questions (etc.)

    Please attempt the following questions related to noise and randomness. I have posted these questions and fairly complete solutions below.

  • Before you do, I would recommend referring to the attached handwritten note that summarizes the properties of the expectation and variance operators. This will prove useful.

    [Aside: Given we have been studying statistics and their usage, I was encouraged to hear the the City of Toronto has decided to analyze data on cycling accidents to try and learn if there was anything systematic going on. `Eureka' (I think the phrase is).]

  • October 12, 2011: random variables note

    Please find the attached note as a supplement to our class discussion. Just let me know if anything is unclear.

  • October 11, 2011:

    Please find some sample questions (and solutions) below intended to give you a flavour for Thursday's in-class test. It will be closed-book and will last one hour. And, as with all the tests in this course, it is not optional, so please prepare well and show up at 4pm on Thursday.

    If you have any questions about any aspect of the course material, please do not hesitate to contact me.

  • October 5, 2011:

    Please find a sample question posted below.

  • September 22, 2011: `missing reasoning'

    Further to today's class, here is the complete reasoning: The slope of a line is given by (height/base). Now height = (height/base)*base, obviously. So we have height = slope*base. I had suggested in class that this was obvious: the preceding steps are why it is obvious. We can then use this when calculating what fitted values should be etc.

    Please read the note also posted below, and let me know if anything is unclear.

  • September 20, 2011:

    Building on our discussion from last week, I have written a note that discusses hypotheses (and expressing them mathematically) in more detail. It then leads into econometrics, which is where we ended up last time. Please read this over, and let me know if you have any questions.

    Please also find the following introductory note on econometrics. We will get into this much more shortly.

  • September 12, 2011:

    In class, I referred to papers by Hanushek and Lazear. For those of you who are interested, they are posted at

    http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~mcmillan/papers/hanushek_1986.pdf

    http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~mcmillan/papers/lazear_2001.pdf

    I will talk about the Lazear paper at the beginning of class this Thursday. For those of you who wish to look at the paper more carefully, I wrote the following note on the Lazear paper (in .pdf format) earlier. You will see there are a couple of things to work through therein.

  • Economics of Education Sample Questions

  • Please attempt the following sample questions. Just let me know if you have any questions.

  • Please attempt the following sample in-class test questions. And here are the solutions to the same sample in-class test. Of course, just let me know if you have any questions.

  • Please attempt the following questions related to noise and randomness.

    Here are (handwritten) solutions to the noise questions, including the bonus question. Just let me know if you have any questions.

  • Please attempt the following questions relevant to the term test. Just let me know if you have any questions.

  • Writing Assignments

  • Please find attached the instructions for Writing Assignment 1. Just let me know if you have any questions.
  • Please find attached the instructions for Writing Assignment 2. Again, please let me know if you have any questions.