tailieunhanh - Ph12-Greene-Econmtric7e2

(BQ) Part 2 book "Econometric analysis" has contents: Discrete choice, discrete choices and event counts, limited dependent variables—truncation, censoring, and sample selection, serial correlation, nonstationary data. | 17 DISCRETE CHOICE Q INTRODUCTION This is the first of three chapters that will survey models used in microeconometrics. The analysis of individual choice that is the focus of this field is fundamentally about modeling discrete outcomes such as purchase decisions, for example whether or not to buy insurance, voting behavior, choice among a set of alternative brands, travel modes or places to live, and responses to survey questions about the strength of preferences or about self-assessed health or well-being. In these and any number of other cases, the “dependent variable” is not a quantitative measure of some economic outcome, but rather an indicator of whether or not some outcome occurred. It follows that the regression methods we have used up to this point are largely inappropriate. We turn, instead, to modeling probabilities and using econometric tools to make probabilistic statements about the occurrence of these events. We will also examine models for counts of occurrences. These are closer to familiar regression models, but are, once again, about discrete outcomes of behavioral choices. As such, in this setting as well, we will be modeling probabilities of events, rather than conditional mean functions. The models that are analyzed in this and the next chapter are built on a platform of preferences of decision makers. We take a random utility view of the choices that are observed. The decision maker is faced with a situation or set of alternatives and reveals something about their underlying preferences by the choice that he or she makes. The choice(s) made will be affected by observable influences—this is, of course, the ultimate objective of advertising—and by unobservable characteristics of the chooser. The blend of these fundamental bases for individual choice is at the core of the broad range of models that we will examine This chapter and Chapter 18 will describe four broad frameworks for analysis: Binary Choice: The