Good information is one of the prerequisites for good choices is, but where do you get the information to make the best choices? Increasingly this information needed to make educated choices is presented in quantitative form. As we move to a situation where we are basing our decisions on quantitative information, however, we must be aware of the dangers that Darrell Huff pointed out nearly 50 years ago in his little book How to Lie with Statistics. The best way to protect you from the 'statistical' lies of others is for you to see first-hand how one could create the lies an how one could see through them. If you invest the effort now in understanding the basic questions that need to be asked when creating or interpreting 'numbers', maybe you will not fall victim to those selling association as causation or those who are guilty of the fallacy of composition.
The good news is that we can now create and process information faster-if we invest in some rudimentary quantitative and presentation skills. In this course we will work on a number of the necessary skills. We'll begin with finding the information/data in both its electronic form and it's hard copy form. You will need to know this if you are undertaking your own analysis or checking up on someone else's. You should emerge from your time here more efficient in your searches of both the Internet and the library.
You will also be asked to make an investment in spreadsheets, one of the most powerful and widely used software packages which will allow you to perform mathematical computations that you never dreamed about and create spiffy tables and graphs. Yes, I did say graphs. You will develop the skills necessary to interpret and create spiffy graphs-one of the preferred means of representing quantitative information. You will not have to flip through too many pages to realize that economists LOVE graphs, and if you are to understand what it is that they are trying to say, then you will need to know a little bit about the language of graphs.
There are, however, some limitations to graphs that have made economists look for additional tools to deal with quantitative information. One of the most powerful is algebra-so prepare yourself to revisit those word problems that you have fond memories of from high school. As you will find out, in addition to helping you 'play' with those algebraic models that economists love, a command of the essentials of algebra is necessary if you are to unleash the remarkable power of spreadsheets.
And we will close with a bit of statistics-the subject matter of one of the courses students have traditionally had the most difficulty with over the years. While this course will by no means be a statistics course, you should emerge with a better appreciation of the power of statistics-and maybe even an interest in looking more deeply into the subject.
Once you have your numbers, you will need to present them-a task that should not be taken lightly. Your numbers will prove to be meaningless if you do not package them in an effective manner, so we will spend some time working on your presentation of quantitative information. Now, however, it is time to move on to a few questions which may give you some idea of what we will be doing in this course.