On Monday this week we will talk about the bootstrap approximation to sampling distributions, confidence intervals, and making group comparisons with regression models.

Wednesday there will be no synchronous sessions so you can use that time to work on your midterm exams.

In-class activities, case studies, exercises, etc for this week

We will work on these in breakout rooms. I suggest having one person share their screen and serve as note-taker, or quickly sharing a Google doc so you can work together. The activities will be a component of your next homework.

Activity 1: Working with categorical variables and dummies in R

If we have time, we’ll get some more practice with the bootstrap in some familiar problems:

Activity 2: Bootstrap practice.

1. Revisit the Milk demand case study. Plot a histogram of the bootstrap approximation to the sampling distribution of the elasticity and compute a 95% confidence interval. Do the data provide strong evidence that milk is an elastic good? Why or why not?

2. Revisit the “Market Models” case study. For the Apple and Target models, plot a histogram of the bootstrap approximation to the sampling distribution of the slope and compute a 95% confidence interval. Is there evidence that one or both of these stocks is less volatile than the market as a whole?

Other materials used in class

Sampling distribution webapp

Dummy variable example R script

See also this reference for working with factors in R (optional)

Readings, videos, and activities to do for next week

TBD (You will have some things to do for the Monday after break.)

Exercises and other things due next week

None!