10 Stockwatson 1

Introduction
to Econometrics
Chapters 1, 2 and 3
The statistical analysis of
economic (and related)
data
Copyright 2011 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved.
Brief Overview of the Course

Economics suggests important relationships,
often with policy implications, but virtually never
suggests quantitative magnitudes of causal
effects.
1. What is the quantitative effect of reducing class size on
student achievement?
2. How does another year of education change earnings?
3. What is the price elasticity of cigarettes?
4. What is the effect on output growth of a 1 percentage
point increase in interest rates by the Fed?
5. What is the effect of firms concentration and entry
barriers on the profitability at the industry level?
6. What is the effect on housing prices of environmental
improvements?
1-2
What is econometrics?
Econometrics is a field of both economics

and statistics which uses economic theory
and statistical tools to:
Quantify causal relationships among variables
Forecast the value of economic variables (e.g
what will be GDP in Italy next quarter?)
1-3
This course is about using data to

measure causal effects.
Ideally, we would like an experiment
What would be an experiment to estimate the effect of class
size on standardized test scores?
But almost always we only have observational

(nonexperimental) data.
returns to education
cigarette prices
monetary policy
Most of the course deals with difficulties arising from using

observational data to estimate causal effects
confounding effects (omitted factors)
simultaneous causality
correlation does not imply causation
1-4
Types of data
We make a distinction among:
Cross sectional data
Time series data
Panel or longitudinal data
and between:
Continuous variables (e.g. income, consumption)
Discrete variables
measurable on an interval scale (e.g. number of patents)
measurable on an ordinal scale (e.g. income class)
measurable on a nominal scale (e.g. unemployment status)
Last two groups are called categorical variables

(ordered or not)
1-5
In this course you will:

Learn methods for estimating causal effects using
observational data
Learn some tools that can be used for other purposes; for
example, forecasting using time series data;
Focus on applications theory is used only as needed to
understand the whys of the methods;
Learn to evaluate the regression analysis of others this
means you will be able to read/understand empirical
economics papers in other econ courses;
Get some hands-on experience with regression analysis in
your problem sets.
1-6
Review of Probability and Statistics

(SW Chapters 2, 3)
Empirical problem: Class size and educational

output
Policy question: What is the effect on test scores (or
some other outcome measure) of reducing class size by
one student per class? by 8 students/class?
We must use data to find out (is there any way to answer
this without data?)
1-7
The California Test Score Data Set

All K-6 and K-8 California school districts (n = 420)
Variables:
5th grade test scores (Stanford-9 achievement test,
combined math and reading), district average
Student-teacher ratio (STR) = no. of students in the
district divided by no. full-time equivalent teachers
1-8
Initial look at the data:
(You should already know how to interpret this table)
This table doesnt tell us anything about the relationship

between test scores and the STR.
1-9
Do districts with smaller classes have

higher test scores?
Scatterplot of test score v. student-teacher ratio
What does this figure show?

1-10
We need to get some numerical evidence on whether

districts with low STRs have higher test scores but how?
1.
Compare average test scores in districts with low STRs to

those with high STRs (estimation)
2.
Test the null hypothesis that the mean test scores in the
two types of districts are the same, against the
alternative hypothesis that they differ (hypothesis
testing)
3.
Estimate an interval for the difference in the mean test

scores, high v. low STR districts (confidence interval)
1-11
Initial data analysis: Compare districts with small (STR < 20)
and large (STR 20) class sizes:
Class Size
Average score
( Y )
Standard deviation
(sY)
Small
657.4
19.4
238
Large
650.0
17.9
182
1. Estimation of = difference between group means

2. Test the hypothesis that = 0
3. Construct a confidence interval for
1-12
1. Estimation
Ysmall Ylarge =
1
nsmall
nsmall
Yi
i1
1
nlarge
nlarge
i1
= 657.4 650.0
= 7.4
Is this a large difference in a real-world sense?

Standard deviation across districts = 19.1
Difference between 60th and 75th percentiles of test score
distribution is 667.6 659.4 = 8.2
This is a big enough difference to be important for school
reform discussions, for parents, or for a school
committee?
1-13
2. Hypothesis testing
Difference-in-means test: compute the t-statistic,

t
Ys Yl
ss2
ns
sl2
nl
Ys Yl
SE(Ys Yl )
(remember this?)
where SE( Ys Yl ) is the standard error of Ys Yl ,

the subscripts s and l refer to small and large
STR districts, and ss2
ns
1
2
(etc.)
(Y
Y
)
i
s
ns 1 i1
1-14
Compute the difference-of-means t-statistic:

Size
small
large
sY
19.4
17.9
Y
657.4
650.0
Ys Yl
ss2
ns
sl2
nl
657.4 650.0
19.42
238
17.92
182
n
238
182
7.4
= 4.05
1.83
|t| > 1.96, so reject (at the 5% significance level)

the null hypothesis that the two means are the
same.
1-15
3. Confidence interval
A 95% confidence interval for the difference
between the means is,
(
Ys Yl
) 1.96SE( Y Y )
s
= 7.4 1.961.83 = (3.8, 11.0)

Two equivalent statements:
1.
2.
The 95% confidence interval for doesnt include 0;

The hypothesis that = 0 is rejected at the 5% level.
1-16
What comes next

The mechanics of estimation, hypothesis testing,
and confidence intervals should be familiar
These concepts extend directly to regression and
its variants
Before turning to regression, however, we will
review some of the underlying theory of
estimation, hypothesis testing, and confidence
intervals:
Why do these procedures work, and why use these rather
than others?
We will review the intellectual foundations of statistics
and econometrics
1-17
Review of Statistical Theory

1.
2.
3.
4.
The probability framework for statistical inference

Estimation
Testing
Confidence Intervals

a) Population, random variable, and distribution
b) Moments of a distribution (mean, variance, standard
deviation, covariance, correlation)
c) Conditional distributions and conditional means
d) Distribution of a sample of data drawn randomly from a
population: Y1, , Yn
1-18
(a) Population, random variable, and

distribution
Population
The group or collection of all possible entities of interest
(school districts)
We will think of populations as infinitely large ( is an
approximation to very big)
Random variable Y
Numerical summary of a random outcome (district average
test score, district STR)
1-19
Population distribution of Y
The probabilities of different values of Y that occur
in the population, for ex. Pr[Y = 650] (when Y is
discrete)
or: The probabilities of sets of these values, for
ex. Pr[640 Y 660] (when Y is continuous).
1-20
(b) Moments of a population distribution: mean,

variance, standard deviation, covariance,
correlation
mean = expected value (expectation) of Y

= E(Y)
= Y
= long-run average value of Y over repeated
realizations of Y
variance = E(Y Y)2
2
= Y
= measure of the squared spread of

the distribution
standard deviation =
variance = Y
1-21
Moments, ctd.
skewness =
3
E Y Y
Y3
= measure of asymmetry of a distribution
skewness = 0: distribution is symmetric
skewness > (<) 0: distribution has long right (left) tail
kurtosis =
E Y Y
Y4
= measure of mass in tails
= measure of probability of large values
kurtosis = 3: normal distribution
skewness > 3: heavy tails (leptokurtotic)
1-22
1-23
2 random variables: joint distributions

and covariance
Random variables X and Z have a joint distribution
The covariance between X and Z is
cov(X,Z) = E[(X X)(Z Z)] = XZ
The covariance is a measure of the linear association

between X and Z; its units are units of Xunits of Z
cov(X,Z) > 0 means a positive relation between X and Z
If X and Z are independently distributed, then cov(X,Z) = 0
(but not vice versa!!)
The covariance of a r.v. with itself is its variance:
cov(X,X) = E[(X X)(X X)] = E[(X X)2] = X
2
1-24
The covariance between Test Score and STR is negative:
So is the correlation
1-25
The correlation coefficient is defined in terms of

the covariance:
corr(X,Z) =
XZ
= rXZ
var( X ) var(Z ) X Z
cov( X , Z )
1 corr(X,Z) 1
corr(X,Z) = 1 mean perfect positive linear association
corr(X,Z) = 1 means perfect negative linear association
corr(X,Z) = 0 means no linear association
1-26
The correlation coefficient measures linear

association
1-27
(c) Conditional distributions and

conditional means
Conditional distributions
The distribution of Y, given value(s) of some other random
variable, X
Ex: the distribution of test scores, given that STR < 20
Conditional expectations and conditional moments
conditional mean = mean of conditional distribution
= E(Y|X = x) (important concept and notation)
conditional variance = variance of conditional distribution

Example: E(Test scores|STR < 20) = the mean of test
scores among districts with small class sizes
The difference in means is the difference between the
means of two conditional distributions:
1-28
Conditional mean, ctd.

= E(Test scores|STR < 20) E(Test scores|STR 20)
Other examples of conditional means:
Wages of all female workers (Y = wages, X = gender)
Mortality rate of those given an experimental treatment (Y =
live/die; X = treated/not treated)
If E(X|Z) = const, then corr(X,Z) = 0 (not necessarily vice
versa however)
The conditional mean is a (possibly new) term for the
familiar idea of the group mean
1-29
(d) Distribution of a sample of data drawn

randomly from a population: Y1,, Yn
We will assume simple random sampling
Choose and individual (district, entity) at random from the
population
Randomness and data
Prior to sample selection, the value of Y is random because
the individual selected is random
Once the individual is selected and the value of Y is
observed, then Y is just a number not random
The data set is (Y1, Y2,, Yn), where Yi = value of Y for the ith
individual (district, entity) sampled
1-30
Distribution of Y1,, Yn under simple

random sampling
Because individuals #1 and #2 are selected at
random, the value of Y1 has no information
content for Y2. Thus:
Y1 and Y2 are independently distributed
Y1 and Y2 come from the same distribution, that is, Y1, Y2
are identically distributed
That is, under simple random sampling, Y1 and Y2 are
independently and identically distributed (i.i.d.).
More generally, under simple random sampling, {Yi}, i =
1,, n, are i.i.d.
1-31
This framework allows rigorous statistical inferences

about moments of population distributions using a sample
of data from that population
1.
2.
3.
4.

Estimation
Testing
Estimation
is the natural estimator of the mean. But:

a) What are the properties of
b) Why should we use
rather than some other estimator?
Y1 (the first observation)
maybe unequal weights not simple average
median(Y1,, Yn)
The starting point is the sampling distribution of

1-32
(a) The sampling distribution of
Y is a random variable, and its properties are
determined by the sampling distribution of Y

The individuals in the sample are drawn at random.
Thus the values of (Y1, , Yn) are random
Thus functions of (Y1, , Yn), such as Y , are random:

had a different sample been drawn, they would have
taken on a different value
The distribution of Y over different possible samples of
size n is called the sampling distribution of Y .
The mean and variance of Y are the mean and variance
of its sampling distribution, E( Y ) and var( Y ).
The concept of the sampling distribution underpins all of
econometrics.
1-33
The sampling distribution of
Y , ctd.
Example: Suppose Y takes on 0 or 1 (a Bernoulli random

variable) with the probability distribution,
Pr[Y = 0] = .22, Pr(Y =1) = .78
Then
E(Y) = p1 + (1 p) 0 = p = .78
Y2 = E[Y E(Y)]2 = p(1 p)
[remember this?]
= .78 (1.78) = 0.1716
Y depends on n.
Consider n = 2. The sampling distribution of
Y is,
Pr( Y = 0) = .222 = .0484

Pr( Y = ) = 2.22.78 = .3432
Pr( Y = 1) = .782 = .6084
1-34
The sampling distribution of Y when Y is Bernoulli (p

= .78):
1-35
Things we want to know about the

sampling distribution:
What is the mean of Y ?
If E(
of
) = true = .78, then
Y is an unbiased estimator
What is the variance of Y ?

How does var( Y ) depend on n (famous 1/n formula)
Does become close to when n is large?

Law of large numbers:
is a consistent estimator of
Y appears bell shaped for n largeis this

generally true?
In fact, Y is approximately normally distributed for n
large (Central Limit Theorem)
1-36
The mean and variance of the sampling

distribution of Y
General case that is, for Yi i.i.d. from any distribution, not
just Bernoulli:
1 n
1 n
1 n
Y = Y
E(Yi ) =
mean: E( Y ) = E( Yi ) =
n i1
n i1
n i1
Variance:
var( Y ) = E[ Y E(
= E[
)]2
Y]2
=E
Yi Y
n i1
2
= E1 n
(Yi Y )
n i1
1-37
so
var( Y ) = E (Yi Y )
n i1
1 n

1 n
= E (Yi Y ) (Y j Y )
n i1
n j1

1 n n
= 2 E (Yi Y )(Y j Y )
n
n
i1 j1
1 n n
= 2 cov(Yi ,Y j )
n i1 j1
1 n 2
= 2 Y
n i1
=
Y2
n
1-38
Mean and variance of sampling

distribution of Y , ctd.
E( Y ) = Y
var( Y ) =
Implications:
Y2
n
is an unbiased estimator of Y (that is, E(

2. var(Y ) is inversely proportional to n
1.
Y) = Y)
1. the spread of the sampling distribution is

proportional to 1/ n
2. Thus the sampling uncertainty associated with Y
is proportional to 1/ n (larger samples, less
uncertainty, but square-root law)
1-39

large
Y when n is
For small sample sizes, the distribution of Y is

complicated, but if n is large, the sampling
distribution is simple!
1. As n increases, the distribution of Y becomes more
tightly centered around Y (the Law of Large Numbers)
2. Moreover, the distribution of Y Y becomes normal
(the Central Limit Theorem)
1-40
The Law of Large Numbers:

An estimator is consistent if the probability that its falls within
an interval of the true population value tends to one as the
sample size increases.
2
If (Y1,,Yn) are i.i.d. and Y< , then Y is a consistent
estimator of Y, that is,
Pr[|
Y| < ] 1 as n
p
which can be written, Y Y

p
( Y Y means Y converges in probability to Y).

Y2
(the math: as n , var(Y ) =
0, which implies that
n
Pr[| Y Y| < ] 1.)
1-41
The Central Limit Theorem (CLT):

If (Y1,,Yn) are i.i.d. and 0 < Y < , then when n is
large the distribution of Y is well approximated by
a normal distribution.
Y2
2
is approximately distributed N(Y,
distribution with mean Y and variance
n (
) (normal
Y2 /n)
Y Y)/Y is Y approximately distributed N(0,1)
(standard normal)
That is, standardized
Y=
Y E(Y )
var(Y )
approximately distributed as N(0,1)
Y Y
Y / n
is
The larger is n, the better is the approximation.
1-42
Sampling distribution of Y when Y is Bernoulli,

p = 0.78:
1-43
Same example: sampling distribution of
Y E(Y )
var(Y )
1-44
Summary: The Sampling Distribution of Y

For Y1,,Yn i.i.d. with 0 < < ,
Y
The exact (finite sample) sampling distribution of Y has mean
2
Y ( Y is an unbiased estimator of Y) and variance Y /n
Other than its mean and variance, the exact distribution of Y is
complicated and depends on the distribution of Y (the
population distribution)
When n is large, the sampling distribution simplifies:
2
Y
Y E(Y )
var(Y )
(Law of large numbers)
is approximately N(0,1) (CLT)
1-45
(b) Why Use
To Estimate Y?
Y is unbiased: E( Y ) = Y
p
Y is consistent: Y Y
Y is the least squares estimator of Y; Ysolves,
n
min m (Yi m)2
i1
so, Y minimizes the sum of squared residuals

optional derivation (also see App. 3.2)
d n
(Yi m)2
dm i1
d
dm (Yi m)2
i1
= 2 (Yi m)
i1
Set derivative to zero and denote optimal value of m

:
by m
n
i1
i 1
Y = m = nm or m =
1 n
Yi
n i1
= Y
1-46
Why Use
To Estimate Y, ctd.
has a smaller variance than all other linear unbiased
1 n
estimators: consider the estimator, Y aiYi , where
n i 1
{ai} are such that Y is unbiased; then var( Y ) var( Y )
(proof: SW, Ch. 17)
isnt the only estimator of Y can you think of a time you

might want to use the median instead?
1.The probability framework for statistical inference

2.Estimation
3.Hypothesis Testing
4.Confidence intervals
1-47
Hypothesis Testing
The hypothesis testing problem (for the

mean): make a provisional decision based
on the evidence at hand whether a null
hypothesis is true, or instead that some
alternative hypothesis is true. That is, test
H0: E(Y) = Y,0 vs. H1: E(Y) > Y,0 (1-sided, >)
H0: E(Y) = Y,0 vs. H1: E(Y) < Y,0 (1-sided, <)
H0: E(Y) = Y,0 vs. H1: E(Y) Y,0 (2-sided)
1-48
Some terminology for testing statistical

hypotheses:
p-value = probability of drawing a statistic (e.g. Y ) at least
as adverse to the null as the value actually computed with your
data, assuming that the null hypothesis is true.
The significance level of a test is a pre-specified probability of
incorrectly rejecting the null, when the null is true.
Calculating the p-value based on
p-value =
Y:
PrH [| Y Y ,0 || Y act Y ,0 |]
0
Where
Y act
is the value of
actually observed (nonrandom)
1-49
Calculating the p-value, ctd.

To compute the p-value, you need the to know the sampling
distribution of Y , which is complicated if n is small.
If n is large, you can use the normal approximation (CLT):
p-value = PrH [| Y Y ,0 || Y act Y ,0 |] ,
0
= PrH0 [|
= PrH [|
0
Y Y ,0
Y / n
Y Y ,0
||
||
Y act Y ,0
Y / n
Y act Y ,0
|]
|]
~ probability under left+right N(0,1) tails

=
where Y = std. dev. of the distribution of Y
= Y/
n.
1-50
Calculating the p-value with Y known:
For large n, p-value = the probability that a N(0,1)

act
random variable falls outside |( Y Y,0)/ Y |
In practice, Y is unknown it must be estimated
1-51
Estimator of the variance of Y:

2
Y
1 n
(Yi Y )2 = sample variance of Y
=
n 1 i1
Fact:
If (Y1,,Yn) are i.i.d. and E(Y4) < , then
p
2
s Y
2
Y
Why does the law of large numbers apply?

2
Because sY is a sample average; see Appendix 3.3

Technical note: we assume E(Y4) < because here
the average is not of Yi, but of its square; see App. 3.3
1-52
Computing the p-value with Y estimated:
p-value = PrH [| Y Y ,0 || Y act Y ,0 |] ,

0
= PrH [|
0
~ Pr [|
=
H
0
so
Y Y ,0
Y / n
Y Y ,0
||
||
sY / n
Y act Y ,0
Y / n
Y act Y ,0
sY / n
|]
|]
(large n)
p-value = PrH [| t || t act |] ( Y2 estimated)

0
~ probability under normal tails

outside |tact|
=
Y Y ,0
where t =
(the usual t-statistic)
sY / n
1-53
What is the link between the p-value and

the significance level?
The significance level is prespecified. For

example, if the prespecified significance
level is 5%,
you reject the null hypothesis if |t| 1.96.
Equivalently, you reject if p 0.05.
The p-value is sometimes called the marginal
significance level.
Often, it is better to communicate the p-value than
simply whether a test rejects or not the p-value
contains more information than the yes/no
statement about whether the test rejects.
1-54
At this point, you might be wondering,...

What happened to the t-table and the degrees of freedom?
Digression: the Student t distribution

2
If Yi, i = 1,, n is i.i.d. N(Y, Y ), then the t-statistic
has the Student t-distribution with n 1 degrees of
freedom.
The critical values of the Student t-distribution is
tabulated in the back of all statistics books.
Remember the recipe?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Compute the t-statistic

Compute the degrees of freedom, which is n 1
Look up the 5% critical value
If the t-statistic exceeds (in absolute value) this critical
value, reject the null hypothesis.
1-55
Comments on this recipe and the Student

t-distribution
1. The theory of the t-distribution was one of the early triumphs
of mathematical statistics. It is astounding, really: if Y is
i.i.d. normal, then you can know the exact, finite-sample
distribution of the t-statistic it is the Student t. So, you
can construct confidence intervals (using the Student t
critical value) that have exactly the right coverage rate, no
matter what the sample size. This result was really useful in
times when computer was a job title, data collection was
expensive, and the number of observations was perhaps a
dozen. It is also a conceptually beautiful result, and the
math is beautiful too which is probably why stats profs love
to teach the t-distribution. But.
1-56
Comments on Student t distribution, ctd.

2. If the sample size is moderate (several dozen) or large
(hundreds or more), the difference between the tdistribution and N(0,1) critical values is negligible. Here are
some 5% critical values for 2-sided tests:
degrees of freedom
(n 1)
5% t-distribution
critical value
10
2.23
20
2.09
30
2.04
60
2.00
1.96
1-57

3. So, the Student-t distribution is only relevant
when the sample size is very small; but in that
case, for it to be correct, you must be sure that
the population distribution of Y is normal. In
economic data, the normality assumption is
rarely credible. Here are the distributions of
some economic data.
Do you think earnings are normally distributed?

Suppose you have a sample of n = 10 observations from
one of these distributions would you feel comfortable
using the Student t distribution?
1-58
1-59

4.
You might not know this. Consider the t-statistic testing

the hypothesis that two means (groups s, l) are equal:
Ys Yl
ss2
ns
sl2
nl
Ys Yl
SE(Ys Yl )
Even if the population distribution of Y in the two groups is

normal, this statistic doesnt have a Student t distribution!
There is a statistic testing this hypothesis that has a normal
distribution, the pooled variance t-statistic see SW
(Section 3.6) however the pooled variance t-statistic is
only valid if the variances of the normal distributions are
the same in the two groups. Would you expect this to be
true, say, for mens v. womens wages?
1-60
The Student-t distribution Summary
The assumption that Y is distributed N(Y, Y2 ) is rarely plausible

in practice (Income? Number of children?)
For n > 30, the t-distribution and N(0,1) are very close (as n
grows large, the tn1 distribution converges to N(0,1))
The t-distribution is an artifact from days when sample sizes were
small and computers were people
For historical reasons, statistical software typically uses the tdistribution to compute p-values but this is irrelevant when the
sample size is moderate or large.
For these reasons, in this class we will focus on the large-n
approximation given by the CLT
1.
2.
3.
4.

Estimation
Testing
Confidence intervals
1-61
A 95% confidence interval for Y is an interval
that contains the true value of Y in 95% of
repeated samples.
Digression: What is random here? The values of
Y1,...,Yn and thus any functions of them
including the confidence interval. The confidence
interval will differ from one sample to the next.
The population parameter, Y, is not random; we
just dont know it.
1-62
Confidence intervals, ctd.

A 95% confidence interval can always be constructed as the set
of values of Y not rejected by a hypothesis test with a 5%
significance level.
{Y:
Y Y
sY / n
Y Y
1.96} = {Y: 1.96
= {Y: 1.96
= {Y (
sY
n
Y Y 1.96
Y 1.96
sY
n , Y + 1.96
sY / n
sY
1.96}
ns
Y
n
)}
This confidence interval relies on the large-n results that Y is

approximately normally distributed and
s Y2 .
2
Y
1-63
Summary:
From the two assumptions of:
1. simple random sampling of a population, that is,
{Yi, i =1,,n} are i.i.d.
2. 0 < E(Y4) <
we developed, for large samples (large n):
Theory of estimation (sampling distribution of Y )

Theory of hypothesis testing (large-n distribution of tstatistic and computation of the p-value)
Theory of confidence intervals (constructed by inverting
the test statistic)
Are assumptions (1) & (2) plausible in practice? Yes
1-64
Lets go back to the original policy

question:
What is the effect on test scores of reducing STR by one
student/class?
Have we answered this question?
1-65

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Introduction

Copyright 2011 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved.

Brief Overview of the Course

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Econometrics is a field of both economics

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This course is about using data to

But almost always we only have observational

Most of the course deals with difficulties arising from using

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Last two groups are called categorical variables

In this course you will:

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Review of Probability and Statistics

Empirical problem: Class size and educational

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The California Test Score Data Set

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Initial look at the data:

(You should already know how to interpret this table)

This table doesnt tell us anything about the relationship

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Do districts with smaller classes have

What does this figure show?

We need to get some numerical evidence on whether

Compare average test scores in districts with low STRs to

Estimate an interval for the difference in the mean test

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1. Estimation of = difference between group means

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Is this a large difference in a real-world sense?

Difference-in-means test: compute the t-statistic,

where SE( Ys Yl ) is the standard error of Ys Yl ,

STR districts, and ss2

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Compute the difference-of-means t-statistic:

|t| > 1.96, so reject (at the 5% significance level)

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= 7.4 1.961.83 = (3.8, 11.0)

The 95% confidence interval for doesnt include 0;

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What comes next

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Review of Statistical Theory

The probability framework for statistical inference

The probability framework for statistical inference

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(a) Population, random variable, and

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(b) Moments of a population distribution: mean,

mean = expected value (expectation) of Y

= measure of the squared spread of

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Copyright 2011 Pearson Addison-Wesley. All rights reserved.

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2 random variables: joint distributions

The covariance is a measure of the linear association

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