Statistics for Management and Economics

Rating:
Summary: A very good introduction to statistics
Review: I found the book remarkably clear and instructive. It was the textbook for an MBA statistics course. Fortunately the book was much better than the teacher, so that by primarily ignoring the confused musings of the professor, and reading and working the exercises in the book, I was able to get an A in the class, and, more importantly, understand statistical principles and applications. I worked with the 6th edition. I now use the book as a reference for my work activities as well.

Rating:
Summary: A lot of ambiguity and errors
Review: I had to use this edition as text book for my Statistics Course in an MBA Program and found multiple errors and ambiguities in describing basic concepts. Lack of rigurousity in presentation is pervasive. Although an engineer by formation, I found this book a terrible reading as an initiation in statistics!

Rating:
Summary: Above average, but that's not saying much for b-stat texts
Review: I have taught MBA Stats using this book for 3 semesters. I have looked carefully at many others, and taught with some of them. Here are some thoughts about Keller/Warrack:

PROS:

All the important topics are covered, and many unimportant ones.

The writing is almost always very clear. The writing is not as good as some economics textbooks I've taught with, but this is true of almost all business statistics textbooks I've seen.

There are plenty of end-of-chapter and end-of-section exercises covering all the key concepts.

Cosmetics - the book has a neat, uncluttered appearance, and the use of color is effective and not distracting. I think this stuff matters, for getting the students to be comfortable spending time with the book, and not making them confused or overwhelmed.

One of the authors, Gerald Keller, is very prompt at returning my emails.

CONS:

Some of the in-text Excel instructions are 90% but not 100% accurate or sufficient.

The "real-world" examples in the probability theory chapters are contrived and unrealistic. This is true of most business stat textbooks, whose authors can't seem to accept that the purpose of these chapters is NOT to illuminate the behavior of the business world, but rather to provide a foundation for a deep understanding of statistical inference (which DOES illuminate the business world extremely well).

The solutions manual has a fair number of mistakes. I'd be more understanding if this was a 1st or 2nd edition, but it's a 6th edition!!! There really is no excuse.

At the end of every semester, I survey my students to get their opinions on various aspects of the textbook. They rate Keller/Warrack acceptable but are not crazy about it. I agree, and have continued using it only because the abundant alternatives are generally mediocre.


Rating:
Summary: It's a very usefull book
Review: It's realy usefull for to problem solving. It helps to learn easly to solve the problems with Excel.

Rating:
Summary: Warning don't go near the 5th edition
Review: The 5th edition of this book, available still in many places, is one awful book. The instructions for most of the Minitab examples are incomplete and in many cases worthless. Many explanations are superficial and the tie in to the overall statistical picture is weak. I have heard the 6th is better, the 5th should not have been printed.

Rating:
Summary: My Bible
Review: This book became my statistics bible. After never attending any statistics classes at the University, I was suddenly forced to work with multiple regressions at work. This book helped me understand all about statistics that I needed for my business purposes. The examples are very helpfull to understand what the tests actually do and how you can solve your own inference problems. I read the whole book in about 10 days (2 hours a day) at the beach and now work mainly with the overviews in the last chapters when I have a problem to solve at work.

Rating:
Summary: Basic an clearly understandable
Review: This book covers a wide area of fields necessary for business and economic students. It also explains how to go on if necessary conditions are violated. Time-series analysis, which is very important for economic students, are not covered to the extent as other topics, but it nevertheless gives a good introduction of other statistical concepts necessary for understanding following books on time series analysis. For my opion there are a little bit to much exercises than necessary, for an autodidactic study but enough for class room work. A very fine feature is that there never come up terminologies which has not been discussed before and one can use MS-Excel.