STATISTICS

PROFESSOR : JUAN JOSÉ MANJARÍN

DEGREE: BACHELOR IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
ACADEMIC YEAR: 2016-2017
DEGREE COURSE YEAR: FIRST SECOND THIRD FOURTH
1º SEMESTER 2º SEMESTER
CATEGORY: BASIC COMPULSORY OPTIONAL
NO. OF CREDITS (ECTS): 6 3
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH SPANISH
TUTORIALS:
FORMAT: ON SITE
PREREQUISITES: MATHEMATICS I AND II

1- SUBJECT DESCRIPTION

Statistics uses mathematical tools to organize and summarize data obtained from the real world,
and to draw conclusions derived from a correct interpretation of these data. In the business world,
statistics can help assess the attractiveness of a business opportunity, increase customer
satisfaction, choose between different investment possibilities, analyze and improve production
processes, etc.
Students following this course will learn how to define the data required in different situations
characterized by uncertainty, how to collect and summarize these data, and how to make
decisions based on data analysis. This course also provides the theoretical and practical bases
for other courses in the degree, such as Marketing Research and Business Decision Making.

2- OBJECTIVES AND SKILLS

The objective of this course is to provide students with the tools to organize and understand data
and to make use of this information in business applications. At the end of the course you should
be able to:
 Describe data by means of graphs or numbers, and understand in which contexts each of
these descriptive tools is useful.
 Understand patterns of randomness that can affect business activities and relate them to
known probability distributions.
 Understand the differences between population and sample distributions
 Read the most common distribution tables.
 Derive confidence intervals for a parameter.
 Make inferences by understanding the concept of null and alternative hypotheses and
interpret outputs of hypothesis testing.
 Test for differences between populations.
 Use statistical methods for decision-making in a business context.

Additionally, the course will focus on the acquisition or reinforcement of generic skills:
A. The ability to summarize and present information in a meaningful way.
B. The ability to build an abstract model to address an economic problem.

Edited by IE Publishing Department.

Last revised, June, 2016.

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C. The ability to quickly identify the tools that are useful in business situations.
3- METHODOLOGY AND WEIGHTING

All the lectures will include some examples and will show how to solve problems using basic
computer tools. Some sessions will be dedicated to application exercises and cases only.
Before all sessions, you are required to read the textbook sections as indicated in the syllabus.
Reading the textbook in advance will allow you to get the most out of each lecture. When reading
the textbook portions prior to each lecture, you must look at the examples but you do not need to
solve them.

You will have to prepare a number of exercises before most sessions, and be ready to
discuss them during the class. Participation will be graded. At the beginning of some ses-
sions, a brief quiz covering some aspects of the reading and/or exercises will be given.
Marks obtained on these quizzes will be included in the final grade.

Teaching Methodology Weighting Estimated time a student

should dedicate to prepare for
and participate in:
Lectures (40)% 60 hours
Discussions (10)% 15 hours
Exercises (20)% 30 hours
Group work (30)% 45 hours
Other Individual studying (0)% 0 hours
TOTAL 100% 150 hours are required for a 6
ECTs course (30 sessions);
75 hours, for 3ECTs (15
sessions)

4- CONTENT

All the required readings are from the compulsory textbook “Statistics for Business and
Economics”, Newbold, Carlson & Thorne, 8th global edition. Reading a section means reading the
text AND the examples.

UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION. GENERAL CONCEPTS.

SESSION 1: INTRODUCTION
 Presentation of the course syllabus and objectives.
 Introduction to the uses of statistics and the different categories of variables

SESSION 2: EXPERIMENT DESIGN AND SAMPLING METHODS

 Statistical vs. Systematic Errors
 Random, stratified and cluster samplings
 Biases

UNIT 2: DESCRIBING DATA: GRAPHICAL AND NUMERICAL METHODS

SESSION 3, 4: PRESENTING DATA IN TABLES AND CHARTS
 Presentation of some graphical tools used to summarize data of different types
 Frequency distributions and Histograms
Required readings: Chapter 1, sections 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 (skip the section on stem-and-leaf displays
on pages 46, 47)

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SESSION 5: NUMERICAL MEASURES TO DESCRIBE DATA
 Measures of central tendency and variability
 Other measures of shape
 Measures of relationships between variables
Required readings: Chapter 2, sections 2.1 to 2.3

UNIT 3: PROBABILITY
SESSIONS 6, 7, 8: PROBABILITY AND ITS POSTULATES. BIVARIATE PROBABILITIES.
BAYES’ THEOREM
 Random experiments, outcomes and events
 Computing the probabilities of processes of interest.
 Probabilities of joint events; Joint and marginal probabilities
 Conditional probabilities.
Required readings: Chapter 3, section 3.3 to 3.5

UNIT 4: RANDOM VARIABLES: DISCRETE AND CONTINUOUS RANDOM VARIABLES, AND

PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS.
SESSIONS 9, 10, 11, 12: RANDOM VARIABLES; DISCRETE RANDOM VARIABLES;
IMPORTANT DISCRETE PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS
 Definition of random variables
 Discrete random variables: probability functions and properties (expected value and
variance)
 Binomial and Poisson probability distributions
 Jointly distributed discrete random variables
 Covariance and correlation
Required readings: Chapter 4, sections 4.1 to 4.7

SESSIONS 13, 14, 15: CONTINUOUS RANDOM VARIABLES; NORMAL DISTRIBUTION AND
OTHER IMPORTANT CONTINUOUS DISTRIBUTIONS
 Definitions and properties
 The Normal distribution
 Other continuous distributions
Required readings: Chapter 5, sections 5.1 to 5.3, and 5.5

UNIT 5: SAMPLING DISTRIBUTIONS OF SAMPLE STATISTICS

SESSION 16: SAMPLING; SAMPLING DISTRIBUTIONS OF SAMPLE MEANS
 Brief introduction to sampling methods
 Random samples
 Distribution of sample means
 Central Limit Theorem
Required readings: Chapter 6, sections 6.1 and 6.2
SESSION 17: SAMPLING DISTRIBUTIONS OF OTHER IMPORTANT STATISTICS
 Sampling distributions of sample proportions
 Sampling distributions of sample variances
Required readings: Chapter 6, sections 6.3 and 6.4

SESSION 18: REVIEW SESSION

SESSION 19: MID-TERM EXAM

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UNIT 6: ESTIMATION: POINT AND INTERVAL ESTIMATION
SESSIONS 20, 21: CONFIDENCE INTERVAL ESTIMATION
 Properties of point estimators
 Confidence intervals for the mean and variance of a normal distribution
 Confidence interval of the mean of a non-nomal distribution

Required readings: Chapter 7, sections 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3

SESSION 22: CONFIDENCE INTERVAL ESTIMATION FOR A POPULATION PROPORTION

 Confidence interval for population proportion (large sample)
 Sample size determination
Required readings: Chapter 7, sections 7.4 and 7.7

UNIT 7: HYPOTHESIS TESTING

SESSIONS 23, 24, 25: HYPOTHESIS TESTING: SINGLE POPULATION
 Null and alternative hypotheses
 Test of the mean and variacne of a normal distribution
 Test of the population proportion
Required readings: Chapter 9, section 9.1 to 9.4

SESSION 26: POWER OF A TEST; EXERCISES

 Assessing the power of a test; types of errors encountered
Required readings: Chapter 9, section 9.5

SESSION 27: MID-TERM EXAM REVIEW

SESSIONS 28, 29, 30: HYPOTHESIS TESTING FOR TWO POPULATIONS

 Tests of the difference between two population means: independent and paired samples
 Test of the difference between two population proportions
Required readings: Chapter 10, section 10.1 to 10.3, and 10.5

UNIT 9: COMPARISON OF SEVERAL POPULATION MEANS

SESSIONS 31, 32, 33: ANALYSIS OF VARIANCE (ANOVA)
 One-way Anova
 Introduction to randomized block design
Required readings: Chapter 15, sections 15.1, 15.2, 15.4

UNIT 10: SAMPLING METHODS

SESSIONS 34, 35, 36: STRATIFIED AND CLUSTER SAMPLING
 Stratified and cluster sampling
 Nonprobabilistic methods
Required readings: course material.
Session 37: Exercises
SESSION 38: REVIEW SESSION

SESSION 39: GROUP PRESENTATION (TO BE CONFIRMED)

Requirements: Submit the final report.

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SESSION 40: FINAL EXAM

Note: The final exam includes all the topics covered during the course (from the first to
the last session.)

5- EVALUATION SYSTEM (ORDINARY AND EXTRAORDINARY)

Your final grade in the course will be based on both individual and group work of different
characteristics that will be weighted in the following way:
A. Class participation 10%

C. quizzes based on problem sets 15%

D. Mid-term Exam 25%
E. Final group presentation & report 20%
F. Final Exam 30%
TOTAL 100%

D. CLASS PARTICIPATION
Three main criteria will be used in reaching judgment about your class participation:
 Depth and Quality of Contribution: The most important dimension of participation concerns
what it is that you are saying. A high quality comment reveals depth of insight, rigorous use
of case evidence, consistency of argument, and realism.
 Moving Your Peers’ Understanding Forward: Great ideas can be lost through poor
presentation. A high quality presentation of ideas must consider the relevance and timing of
comments, and the flow and content of the ensuing class discussion. It demands comments
that are concise and clear, and that are conveyed with a spirit of involvement in the discussion
at hand.
 Frequency: Frequency refers to the attainment of a threshold quantity of contributions that
is sufficient for making a reliable assessment of comment quality. The logic is simple: if
contributions are too few, one cannot reliably assess the quality of your remarks. However,
once threshold quantity has been achieved, simply increasing the number of times you talk
does not automatically improve your evaluation. Beyond the threshold, it is the quality of your
comments that must improve. In particular, one must be especially careful that in claiming
more than a fair share of “airtime”, quality is not sacrificed for quantity. Finally, your attempts
at participation should not be such that the instructor has to “go looking for you”. You should
be attempting to get into the debate on a regular basis.

E. QUIZZES
At the beginning of some sessions, you will be given a short quiz based on required readings and
exercises for the last sessions

F. FINAL GROUP PRESENTATION AND REPORT

Each group should be composed of 4 to 5 students and must prepare a group report due at the
end of the course (more details about intermediate and final deadline will be periodically provided
during the course.) The group project will consist in the identification of a real-world problem,
taken from business or any other field of interest, the collection of relevant data, the statistical
analysis of the data, and the final interpretation of the obtained results.
Every submission will be delivered using turnitin following the appropriate link provided on
campus online. At the end of the semester, you must submit the full report including all sections.
The final version should include edited versions of the previously submitted sections following the
recommendations of your professor.
Make sure the report is easy to read. Consider using bullets, headings, etc., to make it easy to
follow. Avoid being too technical in the report: provide a fact-based rationale for your comments
but make sure that your explanations and recommendations are understandable to someone with
very little statistical knowledge.

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G. MID-TERM AND FINAL EXAM
There will be one mid-term and one final exam. For these exams, you must bring your own
calculator (phones, tablets, laptops and other electronic devices are not allowed). You are also
allowed to bring one two-sided sheet of paper in the mid-term (two sheets in the final exam) with
any formula that you think could be helpful.
In order to pass the course, you need a minimum grade of 3.5 in the final exam. If your grade in
the final exam does not reach the threshold value of 3.5, you will fail the course, even in the case
in which your weighted average (computed using the table above) exceeds 5.0.

RETAKE POLICY
 Each student has 4 chances to pass any given course distributed in two consecutive academic
years (regular period and June period).
 Students who do not comply with the 70% attendance rule will lose their 1st and 2nd chance,
and go directly to the 3rd one (they will need to enrol again in this course next academic year).
 Grading for retakes will be subject to the following rules:
 Students failing the course in the first regular period will have to do a retake in June
(except those not complying with the attendance rules, which are banned from this
possibility).
 Dates and location of the June retakes will be posted in advance and will not be changed.
Please take this into consideration when planning your summer.
 The June retakes will consist on a comprehensive exam. The grade will depend only on
the performance in this exam; continuous evaluation over the semester will not be taken
into account. This exam will be designed bearing in mind that the passing grade is 5 and
the maximum grade that can be attained is 8.
 The non-June retakes (this happens in the ordinary period: students in their third attempt)
will consist on

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6- BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following is the textbook for the course. You are required to obtain a copy and read the
indicated sections in advance, i.e., before each lecture.

COMPULSORY
Title: Statistics for Business and Economics
Author: Newbold, Paul, Carlson, William L. & Thorne, Betty
Publisher / Edition / Year: Pearson Prentice Hall / 8th global edition/ 2013
ISBN / ISSN: 978-0-273-76706-0
Medium: PRINT ELECTRONIC

IE Library Permalink: https://ie.on.worldcat.org/courseReserves/course/id/10001891

Or RECOMMENDED
Title: OpenIntro Statistics, 3rd Edition
Author: Diez, David; Barr Christopher; Cetinkaya-Rundel, Mine
Publisher / Edition / Year: This textbook is available under a Creative Commons license. Visit
openintro.org for a free PDF, to download the textbook’s source files, or for more information
about the license.
ISBN / ISSN:
Medium: PRINT ELECTRONIC

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7- PROFESSOR’S BIO

JUAN JOSÉ MANJARÍN

Academic background:
2005: Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
2001: DEA (Advanced Studies Diploma) in Theoretical Physics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
1999: Degree in Physics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

Academic experience:
2013-Today: Associate Teacher IE University
2006: Visitor Researcher, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
2003-2007: Teaching Assistant, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

Corporate experience:
2010-Today: Director Eien Producciones
2012-2013: Production Manager and Science Coordinator at the TV Production company 110 Balas SL
2009-2011: Project Developer and Producer at different TV Production companies: Hill Valley SL, Estudio
60 SLU,...
2008-2009: Scientist and Prodution Manager at the TV Production company 7 y Acción SL
2007: Documentalist at the TV Production company Gestmusic Endemol

8- OFFICE HOURS; CONTACT INFORMATION

 Office hours: TBA

 Contact details: jjmanjarin@faculty.ie.edu

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