Understanding Regression Analysis: An Introductory Guide

The authors have provided beginners with a background to the frequently-used technique of linear regression. It is not intended to be a substitute for a course or textbook in statistics, but rather as a stop-gap for students who encounter empirical work before undertaking a statistics course. It provides a heuristic explanation of the procedures and terms used in regression analysis and has been written at the most elementary level.

Dr. Larry Schroeder, Professor of Public Administration Maxwell Professor of Teaching Excellence, and Senior Research Associate in the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is a public finance economist with primary interest in state and local public finance and financial management. He has conducted research on a variety of state and local government fiscal issues both in the U.S. and abroad. Much of his current research is directed at public finance issues arising in developing and transition economies. He is particularly interested in problems associated with financing the construction and maintenance of public infrastructure in these environments as well as the broader issues of decentralization, intergovernmental fiscal relations, and the effects of institutional arrangements on the provision of public services. He is the co-author of several books and has written a large number of articles addressing these subjects. Professor Schroeder has consulted with and led policy research projects sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and the United Nations Capital Development Fund in numerous countries, especially in South and Southeast Asia, but also in Africa and Eastern Europe. In 1998-99 he was a Visiting Professor at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang Malaysia and was a Visiting Research Fellow at the National College of Public Administration and Governance at the University of the Philippines (Diliman Campus) in Quezon City, Philippines in 2005-06. Professor Schroeder earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1971. During the early 1970s he was on the economics faculty at Georgia State University. In 1977 he joined the Departments of Public Administration and Economics at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University and served here until 1994 when he was a Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. He rejoined The Maxwell School faculty in 1998.

Dr. Sjoquist is a specialist in the field of public finance, particularly state and local public finance, and has an extensive research interests in urban economics, especially local economic development and central city poverty, and education policy.

Stephan′s research interests focus on the careers of scientists and engineers and the process by which knowledge moves across institutional boundaries in the economy. Stephan currently serves on the National Research Council Board on Higher Education and Workforce. She served on the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council, National Institutes of Health, 2005-2009 and served on the Advisory Committee of the Social, Behavioral, and Economics Program, National Science Foundation, 2001-2008. She was a member of the European Commission High-Level Expert Group that authored the report "Frontier Research: The European Challenge." She has served on a number of National Research Council committees including the committee on Dimensions, Causes, and Implications of Recent Trends in the Careers of Life Scientists, Committee on Methods of Forecasting Demand and Supply of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers, and the Committee on Policy Implications of International Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars in the United States. Her research has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellow Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Stephan graduated from Grinnell College (Phi Beta Kappa) with a B.A. in Economics and earned both her M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan. She has been a visiting scholar at Katholeike Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, spring 2005, a Wertheim Fellow, Harvard University, February 2007, and an ICER fellow, Turin, Italy, fall 2009, spring 2011, and fall 2011. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Department of Economics, Cognetti de Martiis, University of Torino, spring 2011 and fall 2011. Stephan is a research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research. Stephan has published numerous articles in journals such as The American Economic Review, Science, The Journal of Economic Literature, Economic Inquiry, The International Economic Review and Social Studies of Science. She co-wrote, with Sharon Levin, Striking the Mother Lode in Science (Oxford University Press, 1992).