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Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

lectures.quantecon.org

41–50 of 52 posts

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#41
post #29
post #20

They also have a Julia version, which is more interesting.

I want to learn Julia but I have a very big concern: does it actually alter your personality in a way that makes you condescend to everyone about their inferior programming languages, or is it just that people who already are condescending choose to learn Julia?

Haha, this is a great question.

I remember thinking about this before I knew JULIA. I can't remember that time clearly. I have tried to black it out. Presumably, I was just sitting nude in a cave bashing two rocks together covered in faeces and confused shame...just like you.

Here are things I can guarantee: learning JULIA will make you stronger, more agile, your IQ will double, women will be able to smell your dominance, children will run from you screaming in terror, you will be able to grow a thick lustrous beard (even if you are a woman), you will be able to talk to animals and lead them in battle, and you will be able to throw a spear through a 5m deep concrete wall from 200m.

EDIT: I forgot, if you do learn JULIA be sure to avoid any contact with indigenous societies. They will likely think you are a God. You go to the Amazon one time, and suddenly these people are building shrines, making human sacrifices, and carving intricate wood etchings of benchmarks and terse, readable function compositions (they told me they were still using Python2.7...lol).

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#42
post #33
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to learn Julia but I have a very big concern: does it actually alter your personality in a way that makes you condescend to everyone about their inferior programming languages, or is it just that people who already are condescending choose to learn Julia?

Answering your question in good faith, even though I am unsure it was asked that way- I am not a Julia programmer, I mostly write in python, but I find their community welcoming and not condescending at all. I think it would have a positive impact on most people’s personality The language is very interesting too but doesn’t yet have a google, apple or msft behind it so I would understand why lovers of it maybe overst…

It is unjustifiably mean spirited to Julia programmers in general. I admit that it is an unfair characterization of everyone who programs in trendy languages. I just got irritated that he commented with pure snark to what looks like an amazing paper. And I find being witty and mean instead of blandly authoritarian is the best way to handle those people.

Anyone who wants to learn, great. Anyone who wants a one-sentence snark, I'm not going to be as open to helping out.

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#43
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to learn Julia but I have a very big concern: does it actually alter your personality in a way that makes you condescend to everyone about their inferior programming languages, or is it just that people who already are condescending choose to learn Julia?

Haha, this is a great question. I remember thinking about this before I knew JULIA. I can't remember that time clearly. I have tried to black it out. Presumably, I was just sitting nude in a cave bashing two rocks together covered in faeces and confused shame...just like you. Here are things I can guarantee: learning JULIA will make you stronger, more agile, your IQ will double, women will be able to smell your domin…

LOL. That's a shame. I like children, so I guess I'll just have to stay locked in this naively blissful void that I've been mischaracterizing as a 'brain' my whole life.

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#44

If you're interested in econometrics, I highly recommend checking out Marc Bellemare's "Metrics Mondays" blog posts, which are full of useful, pragmatic advice for applying econometric methods to real-world data: http://marcfbellemare.com/wordpress/metrics-mondays . If you're coming from an ML-focused approach to statistics, studying econometrics can be an interesting change of pace, because the focus is totally diff…

When I was in school around 2010 or so, a lot of the younger econ grad students were primarily interested in R. I don't think Stata's going away any time soon, but it might not be completely dominant for that much longer.

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#45
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no conversation here. I was merely taking the opportunity to point out that there is a common misconception regarding the "Nobel prize" and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Two distinct prizes, one commonly mislabeled. Repeating the misnomer just normalizes the error.

Um, yes, there is a conversation here. It's the comments on this thread. And, until you hijacked it, the name of the prize was not what we were talking about.

Yes, I made it a topic as the term was used incorrectly. So I was pointing this out, as not to further this misconception. Is there any additional discussion on this topic needed?

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#46
post #44

If you're interested in econometrics, I highly recommend checking out Marc Bellemare's "Metrics Mondays" blog posts, which are full of useful, pragmatic advice for applying econometric methods to real-world data: http://marcfbellemare.com/wordpress/metrics-mondays . If you're coming from an ML-focused approach to statistics, studying econometrics can be an interesting change of pace, because the focus is totally diff…

When I was in school around 2010 or so, a lot of the younger econ grad students were primarily interested in R. I don't think Stata's going away any time soon, but it might not be completely dominant for that much longer.

A lot of people I know at various departments are switching their undergrad stats/econometrics classes from Stata to R. That's the beginning of the end of Stata.

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#47
post #46
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in school around 2010 or so, a lot of the younger econ grad students were primarily interested in R. I don't think Stata's going away any time soon, but it might not be completely dominant for that much longer.

A lot of people I know at various departments are switching their undergrad stats/econometrics classes from Stata to R. That's the beginning of the end of Stata.

That matters, but I don't think that's happening until all of the big graduate-level metrics textbooks get R versions. And even then, at least a few papers are going to run into trouble with older reviewers who are used to seeing work done in Stata and don't trust anything else.

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#48
post #47
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people I know at various departments are switching their undergrad stats/econometrics classes from Stata to R. That's the beginning of the end of Stata.

That matters, but I don't think that's happening until all of the big graduate-level metrics textbooks get R versions. And even then, at least a few papers are going to run into trouble with older reviewers who are used to seeing work done in Stata and don't trust anything else.

Yes, and it's also non-trivial to write R code that matches your textbook's answer if your textbook used Stata. You have to do things like look up which specific variant of the sandwich estimator Stata uses for robust standard errors, so you can tell R to match that.

In Stata's defense: It helps that Stata is actually really good for the "running regressions" part. In particular, it gets robust standard errors right without much extra work in complex cases that would require a lot of additional code in Python or R.

R wins easily for data visualization and scripting, though. It's also much better as a skill you can "take with you". If you end up working in industry, you may not be able to expense a Stata license, but you'll almost certainly be able to use R (although maybe not RStudio).

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though finance and economics overlap, I think that comment was referring to the social and psychological side of economics.

Was it? Because I have no clue what the poster was referring to. And economists have been writing code since PL/1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Leontief#Affiliation_w... . <- 1949 from Leontief

Re: Lectures in Quantitative Economics with Python [pdf]

#50
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, yes, there is a conversation here. It's the comments on this thread. And, until you hijacked it, the name of the prize was not what we were talking about.

Yes, I made it a topic as the term was used incorrectly. So I was pointing this out, as not to further this misconception. Is there any additional discussion on this topic needed?

Nope. Even the amount that was here wasn't needed.
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