Statistics for Economists 2 Coursework
Submitting work
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instructions will open in a new window). Work should be submitted into the area called ‘EC1009
Assignment’.
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types can be found on the web by clicking ‘How to submit an assignment to Turnitin’ . Under the heading
‘submission title’ you will be required to give your uploaded file a title.
The submission deadline for the project is Tuesday 17th March 2015 before 3pm via EC1009 Blackboard
and Turnitin.
Abstract
This paper presents a report of a study conducted to investigate the relationship among several
economic and financial variables for families residing in Northern London. Data collection was
administered through questionnaires and later entered into excel for analysis. The descriptive
statistics for several variables were presented to show the measures of central tendency and
dispersion. A Pearson’s correlation coefficient was obtained to show the relationship between
family income and expenditure on apples.
Hypothesis Testing
To conduct the study, the following hypothesis was formulated and tested at a 95% precision
level;
H 0: House hold size, family income and expenditure on apples for the households residing in
Northern London are related.
Vs
H 1: House hold size, family income and expenditure on apples for the households residing in
Northern London are not related.
Procedure
To conduct the test in excel, due procedure was followed. The columns with expenditure on
apples and family income were highlighted and the average and standard deviation for the
variables. From the excel menu bar the formulas option was selected where a drop down appears
and statistical formulas were selected. From the statistical options menu, correlation was selected
to conduct the test.
According to Gay et al, (2009), measures of central tendency are indices that represent a typical
score among a group of scores. They provide a convenient way of describing a set of data with a
single number that represents a value generally in the middle to the data set. The mostly used
measures of central tendency include; the mean, median and the mode. From test, mean value for
expenditure on apples is 2.6113 and the mean for family income is 53.41 where they all seem to
have values which are centered hence showing normality in the data.
Measures of dispersion are also described as measures of variability and the show how a set of
data has values which vary since measures of central tendency may not be sufficient. The most
commonly used measures of dispersion include; the range, quartile deviation and the standard
deviation. The standard deviation for the expenditure on apples is 3.422 and the family income is
35.74 where they show minimal variation.
Decision Rule
Reject H 0 if , = 0.05. After conducting the test, a p value of 0.221 was obtained and it is greater
than 0.05 hence we accept the null hypothesis at a 95% level of precision (Kumar, 2009).
Conclusion
From the test, the Pearson’s correlation coefficient obtained indicated a positive relationship
between the variables although the relationship between expenditure on apples (M = 2.6113 SD
= 3.422) and family income (M = 53.41 SD = 35.74) was weak, r = 0.048, p > 0.05, n = 600.
References
Gay, L, R., Mills, E. G., & Airasian, P., (2009). Educational Research: Competencies for
Analysis and Applications (10 th e d.)
Kumar, R. (2009). Research Methodology: A step-by-step Guide for Beginners. Greater Kalash:
Sage Publications
