The course aims at providing students with methodological tools to analyse relationships between macroeconomics and economic activity at firm level. Indeed, any microeconomic decision (i.e., new products, fixed investment, etc.) depends upon the state of the current and future state of the economy (domestic or worldwide). Attending the class will improve students' analytical abilities together with their ability to synthetize information by means of down-to-earth applications. 

1. Definitions and methods of forecasting

2. Statistcal sources and economic analysis

3. Forecasting by means of quantitative methods: single-equation methods

4. Forecasting by means of quantitative methods: time series methods

5. Real-world applications

Basic knowledge of Statistics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Marketing and Business Management will help students to learn and apply forecasting methods to real-world problems.

At the end of of the course, students will be able to manage the acquired techniques to forecast and build scenarios concerning different economic actors and sectors: consumers, firms, industry associations and governments.

Knowledge and Understanding: at the end of the semester students are expected to know multiple forecasting methods by means of which they will be able to build senarios. Futher, they will learn how to find information from several statistical sources and how to manage it by means of statistcal software.

Applying Knowledge and Understanding: students will be able to make forecasts by means of quantitative methods and to evaluate their efficacy.

Making Judgements: students will be able to analyze information to solve several types of problems, to choose the most appropriate method and to evaluate the soundness of found solutions.

Communication Skills: students will learn how to present results from their analyses by means of short reports and graphics. They will learn to work together and present their scenario.

Learning Skills: students will be able to apply technical knowledge acquired in other courses and integrate them with skills that they will learn during this course.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

https://sites.google.com/a/uniurb.it/gcalcagnini/analisi-di-scenario---forecasting and https://blended.uniurb.it/moodle/

Teaching

Lectures & computer lab supplementary work.

Attendance

Highly suggested

Course books

1. Michael K. Evans, Pratictal Business Forecasting, Blackwell Publishing, 2003, capitoli 1-9.

2. Professor's notes (https://sites.google.com/a/uniurb.it/gcalcagnini/analisi-di-scenario---forecasting) and https://blended.uniurb.it/moodle/

Assessment

Final is a written test (3 exercises) taken at the computer lab for 1 and 1/2 hours. Each exercise covers one of the main class topics: a) model estimation (OLS) by means of Gretl; b) traditional time series (exponential smoothing and moving average methods) by Excel; c) ARIMA models by means of Gretl. Each exercise has three questions and each answer you get right is worth three points.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Teaching

There are no changes in the conditions for non-attending students 

Attendance

There are no changes in the conditions for non-attending students 

Course books

There are no changes in the conditions for non-attending students 

Assessment

There are no changes in the conditions for non-attending students 

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Students who take this class, but need to obtain only 6 credits, have the following two options:

1. they can take the same exams as students with 8 credits and claim 2 extra credits;

2. they can skip the exercise on the ARIMA models. In this case their final exam will still consist of three exercises (2 OLS and one Excel, or one OLS and 2 Excel)