
Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf] - carlcarrie
https://lectures.quantecon.org/_downloads/pdf/py/Quantitative%20Economics%20with%20Python.pdf
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Quequau
They also made the same lecture only using Julia rather than Python. I
personally found it to be really useful and I taught myself enough Julia to be
a danger to myself and others.

[https://lectures.quantecon.org/jl/](https://lectures.quantecon.org/jl/)

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dash2
Just to point out: the co-author is Thomas Sargent, Nobel Prize winner and
generally a big deal. If he's taught himself Python, then kudos (he's 76).
Even if not, it's a strong recommendation to have his name on the cover.

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Lutzb
He did not win a Nobel prize, as there is no such thing for economics. However
he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

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mjohn
I don't think pedantry about the name is a useful contribution to the
conversation.

While it's true that Economic Sciences prize is not a "real" Nobel prize, it
is commonly referred to as a Nobel prize. Interestingly, the Nobel Foundation
also lists "Economic Sciences" on their website listing Nobel prizes even
though they do not award or fund it:
[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/)

~~~
Lutzb
There is no conversation here. I was merely taking the opportunity to point
out that there is a common misconception regarding the "Nobel prize" and the
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Two distinct prizes, one commonly
mislabeled. Repeating the misnomer just normalizes the error.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Um, yes, there _is_ a conversation here. It's the comments on this thread.
And, until you hijacked it, the name of the prize was not what we were talking
about.

~~~
Lutzb
Yes, I made it a topic as the term was used incorrectly. So I was pointing
this out, as not to further this misconception. Is there any additional
discussion on this topic needed?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Nope. Even the amount that was here wasn't needed.

~~~
domnomnom
What??? He was literally pointing out a misleading statement and correcting
it.

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michael_j_ward
If you want more than the PDF- here's the site:
[https://lectures.quantecon.org](https://lectures.quantecon.org)

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alexhutcheson
If you're interested in econometrics, I highly recommend checking out Marc
Bellemare's "Metrics Mondays" blog posts, which are full of useful, pragmatic
advice for applying econometric methods to real-world data:
[http://marcfbellemare.com/wordpress/metrics-
mondays](http://marcfbellemare.com/wordpress/metrics-mondays).

If you're coming from an ML-focused approach to statistics, studying
econometrics can be an interesting change of pace, because the focus is
totally different. ML practicioners tend to be focused on prediction, while
econometricians tend to focus on causal inference - utilizing pseudo-
experimental variation within the data to estimate causal effects between
variables. This turns out to be really hard to do correctly, and learning the
pitfalls can make it easy to identify potential weaknesses in other research.

Most econometric work has historically been done in Stata, although it seems
like both R and Python have been increasing in prominence a bit recently.

~~~
joker3
When I was in school around 2010 or so, a lot of the younger econ grad
students were primarily interested in R. I don't think Stata's going away any
time soon, but it might not be completely dominant for that much longer.

~~~
lusmd
A lot of people I know at various departments are switching their undergrad
stats/econometrics classes from Stata to R. That's the beginning of the end of
Stata.

~~~
joker3
That matters, but I don't think that's happening until all of the big
graduate-level metrics textbooks get R versions. And even then, at least a few
papers are going to run into trouble with older reviewers who are used to
seeing work done in Stata and don't trust anything else.

~~~
alexhutcheson
Yes, and it's also non-trivial to write R code that matches your textbook's
answer if your textbook used Stata. You have to do things like look up which
specific variant of the sandwich estimator Stata uses for robust standard
errors, so you can tell R to match that.

In Stata's defense: It helps that Stata is actually really good for the
"running regressions" part. In particular, it gets robust standard errors
right without much extra work in complex cases that would require a lot of
additional code in Python or R.

R wins easily for data visualization and scripting, though. It's also much
better as a skill you can "take with you". If you end up working in industry,
you may not be able to expense a Stata license, but you'll almost certainly be
able to use R (although maybe not RStudio).

~~~
mruts
You don't even want to expense a Stata license. Stata is the worst thing I've
ever had to use. Maybe as a person who can't program it makes sense, but as a
professional developer almost everything about Stata is non-intuitive,
confusing, and stupid. Also the only thing to go on is their stupid pdf
manual. Finding real people on the internet who actually use it is almost
impossible.

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cwal37
Ahh, this is nice. I work in an office with a number of economists (energy
economics consulting firm), but I’m basically the only python user. Feel like
this could be useful in bridging some gaps for the folks who only use SAS and
got their PhDs cobbling together whatever code (VB, FOTRAN, etc.) got their
models to run back in the day.

I’ve written so much documentation on Confluence where it would have been
easier to just send a pdf like this :/

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xvilka
They also have a Julia version, which is more interesting.

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kolbe
I want to learn Julia but I have a very big concern: does it actually alter
your personality in a way that makes you condescend to everyone about their
inferior programming languages, or is it just that people who already are
condescending choose to learn Julia?

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hogFeast
Haha, this is a great question.

I remember thinking about this before I knew JULIA. I can't remember that time
clearly. I have tried to black it out. Presumably, I was just sitting nude in
a cave bashing two rocks together covered in faeces and confused shame...just
like you.

Here are things I can guarantee: learning JULIA will make you stronger, more
agile, your IQ will double, women will be able to smell your dominance,
children will run from you screaming in terror, you will be able to grow a
thick lustrous beard (even if you are a woman), you will be able to talk to
animals and lead them in battle, and you will be able to throw a spear through
a 5m deep concrete wall from 200m.

EDIT: I forgot, if you do learn JULIA be sure to avoid any contact with
indigenous societies. They will likely think you are a God. You go to the
Amazon one time, and suddenly these people are building shrines, making human
sacrifices, and carving intricate wood etchings of benchmarks and terse,
readable function compositions (they told me they were still using
Python2.7...lol).

~~~
kolbe
LOL. That's a shame. I like children, so I guess I'll just have to stay locked
in this naively blissful void that I've been mischaracterizing as a 'brain' my
whole life.

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misrab
FINALLY the field of Economics is waking up to the 20th (yes) century...

I've always loved the questions economics asks, but found the methodology for
finding answers to miss out on ideas from computer science

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idonotknowwhy
I got lost at part 1.4.1 on page 6. I know python, but what would I need to
learn to actually follow this pdf?

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QuesnayJr
It basically assumes you have at least one year's grad school level background
in economics. It does give some overview, but probably not enough to learn it
from the book alone.

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James_Henry
No, this is advanced undergrad economics or at the most it is in the first
year of grad school.

