Books for practicing regression analysis

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SpareTime

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I have the summer off and as such I’m looking for some books that can help guide me doing some actual regression analysis.
One of the most interesting parts of the CFA L2 curriculum for me was multiple regression, and there’s all sorts of stuff I’d like to try it out on (particularly baseball, because I am a big fan and there’s lots of freely available data).
However, the CFA curriculum gives you the theory but I’m certainly not ready right now to run a good regression analysis. Does anyone have suggestions for books or textbooks that walk you through different regression analyses where I can actually do the analysis alongside the book? Something where data sets are available for download and you can physically manipulate the data you’re working with.
tickersu suggested a couple texts for me but I was only able to find them for sale and they were pretty expensive. I’m willing to spend money but I’m hoping to find something in my library if at all possible. It doesn’t have to be baseball themed or anything…but….triple points if anybody can suggest a sabermetrics book that actually goes into dirty detail into the regression required for many of the advanced stats in the game. Most of the baseball books I’ve found are not technical enough. They explain WAR, wrc+, xFIP, etc… but they just sort of tell you that you have to take their word on how the regression equations are developed.
 
I have a friend who’s been doing a lot of analysis of baseball.
He sends me the data and I run the regressions in Excel.
He’s doing his betting on paper this season. If it works out well, he’ll put up real money next season.
 
S2000magician wrote:
I have a friend who’s been doing a lot of analysis of baseball.
He sends me the data and I run the regressions in Excel.
He’s doing his betting on paper this season. If it works out well, he’ll put up real money next season.
Click to expand...
Well I hope he’s putting money on the Blue Jays every day :P. Or at least, put money on the over for their games.
What kinds of regressions are you running? If he’s betting then I would imagine it’s based on team stats as opposed to individual.
 
SpareTime wrote:
I have the summer off and as such I’m looking for some books that can help guide me doing some actual regression analysis.
One of the most interesting parts of the CFA L2 curriculum for me was multiple regression, and there’s all sorts of stuff I’d like to try it out on (particularly baseball, because I am a big fan and there’s lots of freely available data).
However, the CFA curriculum gives you the theory but I’m certainly not ready right now to run a good regression analysis. Does anyone have suggestions for books or textbooks that walk you through different regression analyses where I can actually do the analysis alongside the book? Something where data sets are available for download and you can physically manipulate the data you’re working with.
tickersu suggested a couple texts for me but I was only able to find them for sale and they were pretty expensive. I’m willing to spend money but I’m hoping to find something in my library if at all possible. It doesn’t have to be baseball themed or anything…but….triple points if anybody can suggest a sabermetrics book that actually goes into dirty detail into the regression required for many of the advanced stats in the game. Most of the baseball books I’ve found are not technical enough. They explain WAR, wrc+, xFIP, etc… but they just sort of tell you that you have to take their word on how the regression equations are developed.
Click to expand...
Sorry to hear they weren’t available from a local library… I can tell you I got relatively lucky for how much I paid for each book, but they are good if you can get your hands on them (particularly the one I mentioned to you about applied regression–it has walk trough case studies [data included with the book] as you mentioned, just not necessarily baseball examples). There might be a regression text for sports, but I can only recommend (comfortably) what I’ve used. You can also check out stack exchange for statistics and see if anyone has any suggestions. I hope you’re able to find something that’s cost effective and interesting for you!
 
I forgot to mention that previous (and or second hand) versions of these books (most texts) are usually much cheaper and generally work just as well (unless it’s accounting and the book is outdated within 5 months…)
 
SpareTime wrote:
S2000magician wrote:I have a friend who’s been doing a lot of analysis of baseball.
He sends me the data and I run the regressions in Excel.
He’s doing his betting on paper this season. If it works out well, he’ll put up real money next season.
Click to expand...
Well I hope he’s putting money on the Blue Jays every day :P. Or at least, put money on the over for their games.
What kinds of regressions are you running? If he’s betting then I would imagine it’s based on team stats as opposed to individual.
Click to expand...
As the statistics he’s using are considered proprietary, I, unfortunately, cannot tell you.
He’s using publically available data, but in a novel way. At least, I think it’s novel, and he (who has studied baseball for years) thinks it’s novel.
The question, of course, is whether it’s worth anything. Time will tell.
 
Are you lookong just on regression analysis as per the CFA curriculum or in running deeper data analysis using multivariate methods using SPSS?
If you want to perform real statistical analysis on big data sets excel will not bring you very far.
 
’Oscar’ wrote:
Are you lookong just on regression analysis as per the CFA curriculum or in running deeper data analysis using multivariate methods using SPSS?
If you want to perform real statistical analysis on big data sets excel will not bring you very far.
Click to expand...
What are you meaning by multivariate… Multiple regression or MANOVA, MANCOVA, Factor analysis, PCA (etc.)?
Either way, I agree excel will be pretty weak for many things…SPSS is decent but we can use something with (way) more than enough horsepower in SAS.(Except, SAS is incredibly expensive.)
 
’Oscar’ wrote:
Are you lookong just on regression analysis as per the CFA curriculum or in running deeper data analysis using multivariate methods using SPSS?
If you want to perform real statistical analysis on big data sets excel will not bring you very far.
Click to expand...
I don’t know what you just said…so….I guess not lol. I need to crawl before I walk.
 
I’m going to go to my university library to see if they have the Woolridge book next week. If they don’t I think I might be out of luck for that one.
Does anybody have any feedback on any of the following?
Econometrics for Dummies
Mostly Harmless Econometrics
Mastering ‘Metrics
Econometric Methods by Johnston
 
Take a look at:
Practical Business Forecasting
Elements of Forecasting
These use Eviews to run regressions. Eviews spits out many statistics that you cover in L2. I like it because its really easy to run automatic filters to smooth out seasonality. You can also forcast with standard errors. Not SAS, but very easy to use.
 
tickersu wrote:
’Oscar’ wrote:
Are you lookong just on regression analysis as per the CFA curriculum or in running deeper data analysis using multivariate methods using SPSS?
If you want to perform real statistical analysis on big data sets excel will not bring you very far.
Click to expand...
What are you meaning by multivariate… Multiple regression or MANOVA, MANCOVA, Factor analysis, PCA (etc.)?
Either way, I agree excel will be pretty weak for many things…SPSS is decent but we can use something with (way) more than enough horsepower in SAS.(Except, SAS is incredibly expensive.)
Click to expand...
Yes, amongst others I was refering to those methods. Depending on the question/hypothesis you want to analyze a simple linear regression model will not be sufficient.
 
’Oscar’ wrote:
tickersu wrote:
’Oscar’ wrote:
Are you lookong just on regression analysis as per the CFA curriculum or in running deeper data analysis using multivariate methods using SPSS?
If you want to perform real statistical analysis on big data sets excel will not bring you very far.
Click to expand...
What are you meaning by multivariate… Multiple regression or MANOVA, MANCOVA, Factor analysis, PCA (etc.)?
Either way, I agree excel will be pretty weak for many things…SPSS is decent but we can use something with (way) more than enough horsepower in SAS.(Except, SAS is incredibly expensive.)
Click to expand...
Yes, amongst others I was refeering to those methods. Depending on the question/hypothesis you want to analyze a simple linear regression model will not be sufficient.
Click to expand...
Yes, I’m aware– I’ve done a bit with those and other multivariate techniques. I think he is just looking to start on regression, but either way, I think excel is a little weak or cumbersome at best. You can certainly start with it for basic ideas and practice.

If you’re not opposed to buying used and a previous edition from amazon, it looks like you have options starting at 30 USD for the Wooldridge text.
Also, I’m not sure how it is in Canada, but universities in the US tend to loan books to one another, so it would be worth asking your librarian if that’s an option for a book that isn’t currently at your library.

Here is the link for the econometrics by Wooldridge (one edition prior and second hand):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0324660545/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_1?refRID=1SWPPN9Z15QG0T1JK80Y

The previous edition of the other book starts used at 0.01 USD (new copies about 40 USD). Here is the link for that (one edition off the newest).http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/00238...regression&dpPl=1&dpID=31x4SThcGLL&ref=plSrch
 
Before going into theory, you will have to decide on software first. Excel is very limited to simple OLS (there are some add-ons, but they are either very costly or hardly reliable). EViews and Stata are very newbie-friendly solutions, but R is still the way to go for any serious statistical analysis. There is a vast community around R and tons of books on various special topics.
If you are comfortable with matrix algebra, Greene’s Econometric Analysis, mostly considered the bible of econometrics (with more than 1200 pages a fitting analogy), is the onyl way to go and will get you from anything OLS to GLM and fixed/random effects models.
http://www.amazon.com/Econometric-Analysis-7th-William-Greene/dp/0131395...
Woolridge is a good intro, if your matrix algebra is rusty. To practice, you will need some software guided book. I recommend Kleiber & Zeileis’ Applied Econometrics in R as a practical intro to regression analysis.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387773169/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_i2?pf_...
Once you are comfortable with the above, the next logical step is Tsay’s Analysis of Financial Time Series, which will get you where I guess you will really want to go - the analysis of finance data. Once you’re done with that I have a whole plethora of follow-up readings for you if you are still interested then.
http://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Financial-Time-Ruey-Tsay/dp/0470414359/re...
 
for mostly harmless econometrics, I think it depends on you’re level of understanding of stats and math. it might be overwhelming for some.
 
dwheats wrote:
for mostly harmless econometrics, I think it depends on you’re level of understanding of stats and math. it might be overwhelming for some.
Click to expand...
From what I’ve heard, Mostly Harmless Econometrics is a good book, but is very narrow in scope– it leaves out time series and several topics in a common regression course- interaction terms, for example (but I haven’t used the book, so I can’t verify this). At some point, you can just jump in and start. Eventually, you will learn more if you keep digging…
 
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