Coventry, United Kingdom

Finance and Econometrics

Language: English Studies in English
Subject area: economy and administration
University website: www.warwick.ac.uk
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Econometrics
Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data and is described as the branch of economics that aims to give empirical content to economic relations. More precisely, it is "the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena based on the concurrent development of theory and observation, related by appropriate methods of inference". An introductory economics textbook describes econometrics as allowing economists "to sift through mountains of data to extract simple relationships". The first known use of the term "econometrics" (in cognate form) was by Polish economist Paweł Ciompa in 1910. Jan Tinbergen is considered by many to be one of the founding fathers of econometrics. Ragnar Frisch is credited with coining the term in the sense in which it is used today.
Finance
Finance is a field that deals with the study of investments. It includes the dynamics of assets and liabilities over time under conditions of different degrees of uncertainties and risks. Finance can also be defined as the science of money management. Market participants aim to price assets based on their risk level, fundamental value, and their expected rate of return. Finance can be broken into three sub-categories: public finance, corporate finance and personal finance.
Econometrics
As an econ blogger, I get the sense that this is exactly how many Americans still think of economists--as self-appointed defenders of the free market, spinning theories to show that greed is good. Watching those old Milton Friedman videos, I wonder if that picture might have been accurate in the 1960s and 1970s. But some big things have changed in the field of economics, and America should know about them. Three big changes stand out in particular: Econ today is more data-driven, far less politically conservative, and in general much more like engineering than it used to be.
Noah Smith, "Economists used to be the priests of free markets--now they're just a bunch of engineers," Quartz, May 13, 2014.
Econometrics
(Econometrics is) the unification of economic theory, statistics and mathematics.
Ragnar Frisch, quoted in: Warren Page (2013) Applications of Mathematics in Economics. p. 75
Finance
Nothing in finance is more fatuous and harmful, in our opinion, than the firmly established attitude of common stock investors regarding questions of corporate management. That attitude is summed up in the phrase: "If you don't like the management, sell your stock." [...] The public owners seem to have abdicated all claim to control over the paid superintendents of their property.
Benjamin Graham, World Commodities and World Currencies (1944)
Sediments and landforms left behind by retreating glaciers can provide valuable information on the processes that shaped them. Reconstructing the behaviour of glaciers and ice sheets could provide important indicators of environmental change.
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