Economics 217
Spring 2008


Instructor: William Lott
Office: HRM 346
Office Hours: TuTh 11-12
Phone: 860-486-3885
E-Mail: William.Lott@uconn.edu
Web Site: http://wlott.uconn.edu
Class Period TuTh 8-9:15 AM
Classroom HRM 203
TA: Tugba Ozer
TA E-mail: Tugba.Ozer@uconn.edu
TA Office: HRM 328
TA Office Hours: TBA
Text: Excel 2007 All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies by Greg Harvey, PhD, Paper, 2007


In-class Exercises 25%
mid-term exam (March 6th) 30%
project 10%
final exam (May 8th, 10:30AM ) 35%
Total 100%

    Notes
  1. In-class exercises are graded 1(poor), 2(O.K), or 3(outstanding). At the end of the semester, your lowest 3 exercise grades will be dropped. Absences count as zeros, but may be among the three grades that are dropped.
  2. There will be no make-up of the midterm exam.
  3. The project is to create an Excel workbook showing imaginative use of some of the techniques you have learned in Economics 217. It should apply information technology methods from at least two of the class exercises to data that you have acquired on your own. Keep in mind that effective presentation of data requires careful attention to selection of data, choice of methods, visually meaningful graphs, and even details such as colors and an appropriate number of decimal places. A one-paragraph project proposal is due on April 15th. The project is due April 24th. A grade penalty will be imposed on projects that are submitted after December 8.
  4. Instructions for Monteith Room 203
  5. Data Sources


Tentative Course Outline (Subject to Change)
Date
Topic
Jan. 22 Introduction. Boring columns of numbers vs. effective visual images: Bankrupties
Jan. 24 Basic microeconomics: elasticity of demand
Jan. 29 Frequency Distribution: Income by Insurance payer
Jan. 31 BoxPlot: Connecticut Faculty Salaries
Feb. 5 What If: Table Analysis: Property Tax Payments
Feb. 7 Scenarios: Products production and profits
Feb. 12 Goal Seek and Solver
Feb. 14 Histograms and Correlation: Rental Vacancy Rates
Feb. 19 Rates of Change: Real Interest Rates in the Vietnam Era
Feb. 21 Aggregating monthly data to quarterly and annual data: Dollar Exchange Rate
Feb. 26 Index Numbers: World Inflation
Feb. 28 Present Value Calculations: The lottery and the value of lost earnings
Mar. 4 When did it happen: dates and time in Excel
Mar. 6 Midterm Exam
Mar. 18 Filters: New England State Revenues
Mar. 20 Pivot Tables: Making Sense American Community Survey
Mar. 25 Simple Regression with Excel: Huble Constant
Mar. 27 Multiple Regression and Transformations
Apr. 1 Financial calculations: mortgage interest rates and downpayments
Apr. 3 Time-Series: Seasonal Indices
Apr. 8 Income Inequality
Apr. 10 Income Inequality: Connecticut
Apr. 15 Poverty: Connecticut and Elsewhere
Apr. 17 Income Taxes: Connecticut and U.S. Data
Apr. 22 Dealing with data in inconvenient format: text manipulation and macros
Apr. 24 Working with Lists: Stock Market Recommendations
Apr. 29 Saving for Retirement
May 1 Cellular Automata on a Spreadsheet
May 8 - 10:30 AM Final Exam


Worksheets
Week Lecture Exercise
1 Week1 Exercise 1
2 Week 2 Exercise 2
3 Week 3 Lists Exercise 3
4 Week 4 Exercise 4
5 Week 5 Exercise 5
6 Week 6 Exercise 6
7 Week 7
8 week 8 Exercise 7
9 Week 9 Exercise 8
10 Week 10 Exercise 9
11 Week 11 Exercise 10
12 Week 12 Exercise 11
13 Week 13 Exercise 12
14 Week 14 Exercise 13