Introductory Statistics for Business and Economics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Descriptive Statistics

   • Jan Ubøe

   Pages 1-26

3. Probability

   • Jan Ubøe

   Pages 27-39

4. Combinatorics

   • Jan Ubøe

   Pages 41-53

5. Conditional Probability

   • Jan Ubøe

   Pages 55-74

6. Random Variables, Mean, and Variance

   • Jan Ubøe

   Pages 75-96

7. Joint Distributions

   • Jan Ubøe

   Pages 97-111

8. Basic Probability Distributions

   • Jan Ubøe

   Pages 113-157

9. Estimation

   • Jan Ubøe

   Pages 159-175

10. Hypothesis Testing

    • Jan Ubøe

    Pages 177-200

11. Commonly Used Tests

    • Jan Ubøe

    Pages 201-244

12. Linear Regression

    • Jan Ubøe

    Pages 245-314

13. Back Matter

    Pages 315-466

    PDF

This textbook discusses central statistical concepts and their use in business and economics. To endure the hardship of abstract statistical thinking, business and economics students need to see interesting applications at an early stage. Accordingly, the book predominantly focuses on exercises, several of which draw on simple applications of non-linear theory. The main body presents central ideas in a simple, straightforward manner; the exposition is concise, without sacrificing rigor. 

The book bridges the gap between theory and applications, with most exercises formulated in an economic context. Its simplicity of style makes the book suitable for students at any level, and every chapter starts out with simple problems. Several exercises, however, are more challenging, as they are devoted to the discussion of non-trivial economic problems where statistics plays a central part.

• Probability theory
• Statistical thinking
• Statistics exercises
• Statistics for Business
• Statistics for Economics
• Inference
• Applications of statistics to business and economics
• Applications to finance
• Descriptive statistics
• Random variables
• Probability distributions
• Estimation
• Hypothesis testing
• Regression
• Combinatorics
• Mean and variance
• Option pricing
• Conditional probabilities
• Excel for statistics
• Expectation

“This textbook is an introductory one which is intended first of all for researchers, analysts and practitioners in finance and economics which are not going to become professional statisticians. … the author introduces the readers to the complex technology through many examples and exercises which are simple and explicit at the beginning and grow up to nontrivial problems of economic practice.” (Vladimir Gorbunov, zbMATH 1407.62008, 2019)

• Department of Business and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway

  Jan Ubøe

Jan Ubøe is a Professor of Mathematics at the Norwegian School of Economics. He has published research in several different areas of mathematics and economics: theory on stochastic differential equations, option pricing theory, regional science, transportation science and management science. His contributions have also been recognized with several awards for excellence in teaching.

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