Research Methods in Economics and Social Science

Overview

The aim of this module is to give an introduction into the statistical methods of the social and economic sciences, with special emphasis on the research process and data collection methods.

By the end of this module, a student should understand

• what social science is and how it is done,
• what the relationship between theory and data is and which role modeling has,
• which types of data are available to the social scientist and
• which methods are used to collect and analyse these data.

Syllabus and time schedule of the lecture course

1. Social Science as Empirical Science (28/04, 02/05)
2. Topics and Questions of Social Science (02/05)
3. Paradigms in Social Science (05/05)
4. Induction and Deduction (09/05)
5. Observation, Measurement and Experiment in the Social Sciences (09/05, 12/05, 16/05)
6. Surveys and Questionnaires (19/05, 23/05, 30/05, 02/06)
7. Univariate Statistics (13/06, 16/06)
8. Bivariate Statistics, Nominal Data (20/06)
9. Bivariate Statistics, Ordinal Data (20/06)
10. Bivariate Statistics, Metric Data (23/07, 27/06) no lectures on June 30 and July 4!
11. Multiple Regression (07/07)
12. Factor Analysis (07/07, 11//07)
13. Cluster Analysis (14/07)
14. Time Series Analysis (18/07, 21/07)
15. Summary (25/07, 28/07)
16. Written examination (03/08, 9-11 E 011)

Course material

All slides for this course can be found here.

The statistical part of this course (topics 7 through 13) is also dealt with in Andreas Engel, Michael Möhring, Klaus G. Troitzsch: Sozialwissenschaftliche Datenanalyse. Mannheim: BI Wissenschaftverlag 1995.

Research methods, particularly data collection methods are dealt with in this paper (which has not been revised for al long time!).

Basic Reading

• Keith F. Punch (1998). Introduction to Social Research. Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches. London: Sage
• Arlene Fink (1995/2002). The Survey Kit. London: Sage
• Jane Fielding and Nigel Gilbert (2000): Understanding Social Statistics. London: Sage

SPSS

The data analysis software system SPSS is available in all labs using XP:

All Programs -> SPSS for Windows --> SPSS 13.0 for Windows

Additional information on SPSS:

• SPSS Homepage
• SPSS page (University of Cologne)

Data Sets

Three data sets will be used in the tutorial

• Eurobarometer 58.2 (September-October 2002) and 62.1 (October-November 2004)
  

  Variable groups:

  • Services of general interest (telephone, electricity, ...)
  • Biotechnology
  • Computer and Internet use
  • Health information
  • Environment
  • Public Safety
  • Demographic data of the respondents

  Most variables are available for both 2002 and 2004.

  Data set descriptions: Eurobarometer 58.2, Eurobarometer 62.1

  Data sets: Eurobarometer 58.2, Eurobarometer 62.1

• Stock indexes
  10 different time series describing the most important stock indexes collected from november 1995 to February 2001
  • Dow Jones Industrial
  • S&P Composite
  • Nikkei 30
  • Dax 30
  • CAC 40
  • Swiss Market
  • Milan MIB 30
  • Ibex 35I
  • BEL 20
  • FTSE 100

  Data set

Time schedule for the labs