Real stats : using econometrics for political science and public policy

"The first edition of Real Econometrics attempted to reduce math anxiety for students learning applied statistical techniques. Beginning with the assumption that students will learn more if they start with experiments and see how the statistical enterprise is used to approximate certain features of the experimental process, the book gives students a chance to explore policy questions at every step of the way. The response to this approach has been tremendous. Instructors appreciate the author's reliance on endogeneity as a founding concept, his more conversational and sometimes humorous writing style, and the diversity of examples and hands-on work. Political Science professors understand "Real Stats" as a book that will bridge their students from their earlier course on basic statistics to more advanced econometric techniques. One of the early reviewers described the book as "a stats book that ... really just cuts to the chase instead of wasting time on probablity theory and chi squares." For instructors teaching a research methods course to graduate students or upper level undergraduates in political science, public policy, or law, this is a welcome and badly needed approach. For this second edition of Real Stats, suggestions from reviewers will be considered carefully. The book may contain too much material for the typical political science oriented class, and it will not need some of the additional content planned for the revision of Real Economtrics such as advanced time series concepts. However, an expanded appendix (or early chapter introduction) reviewing probabilty and statistics, additional coverage of data presentation, the addition of conceptual exercises to balance out the mostly mathematical problems, and the inclusion of more code and guidance for R software are all likely improvements."