Analytics

Pre-reading:

• Thomas H. Davenport, “Competing on Analytics”, Harvard Business Review, Jan 1st 2006
• “The Use and Misuse of Statistics”, Harvard Management Update, No. U0603C

Reports: “Analytics bundle”, Anthony J. Evans [WIP]

Briefs: House of Commons library

Textbook: Curwin, J, and Slater, R., 2007, Quantitative Methods for Business Decisions, Cengage Learning, 6th Edition

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1. Mind & mathematics

• Theory vs. fact (exercise)
• Statistical manipulation (lecture)
• “How expensive is oil?” [see dy/dan]

Reading: “Think like a statistician – without the math“, Flowing data, March 4th 2010

Video: Fermat’s Last Theorem

2. Descriptive statistics

• “Krupnik Estate Agents: Measures of location and dispersion” (lecture)
• Back of the envelope calculation (exercise)

Variance: The small schools myth, Alex Tabarrok

3. Probability theory

• Freemark Abbey Winery (case)
• Problem set on probability theory, permutations & combinations due in class
• Bayes theorem (brief lecture to debrief PS1)
• Probability distributions (lecture)

Reading: “How to understand risk in 13 clicks,” BBC News, March 11th 2009

4. Inferential statistics

“Taxi for Professor Evans” available here

• Confidence intervals
• Significance tests
• Non-parametric

Reading: “Measure for Measure: The strange science of Francis Galton“, by Jim Holt, The New Yorker, Jan 24th 2005

5. Regression

“The suitcase case” available here

• Correlation
• Liner regression

6. Time series

• (Lecture)
• Fund. Maths / numeracy skills bootcamp

Exponents: here

Logarithms: Everton’s 2009 FA Cup run

7. Workshop I

• Collecting and Presenting Data (see here)
• Fermat’s Folly (case)

8. Game theory

• (Lecture)

9. Group presentations

• (Presentations)

10. Workshop II

• Problem set on material thus far (based on previous years examination) due in class
• Review session

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