Mastering Metrics: health insurance

Read Mastering Metrics pages one through five (the last paragraph on page five continues on to page 6 for a few lines) AND also take a look at the Chapter 1 appendix. (This will just be a preview of the Appendix; you don’t have to read the whole Appendix now, but you will be reading it soon.) Pay particular attention to Table 1.1. Answer the following questions. Please don’t try to answer these questions until you’ve actually read all five pages associated with this week’s assignment, and previewed the Appendix. You can either prepare your answers using a word processing program, and upload your answers here in either DOC, DOCX or PDF format, or type your answers directly into the text entry box.

1.In Table 1.1, first row, fourth column, the number 4.02 appears. Describe this number.

  1. In Table 1.1, first row, fifth column, the number 3.62 appears. Describe this number.
  2. In the first row, sixth column of Table 1.1, what does the number 0.39 represent?
  3. Does this table contain evidence that health insurance causes people to be healthier? Why or why not?
  4. Below the numbers mentioned in questions 1 and 2 above are the numbers 0.92 and 1.01, which appear in square brackets [ ] . What do these numbers measure? (Hint: Read the notes at the bottom of the table; read also page 36 of the Chapter Appendix and note the formula in footnote 16 for a review of these basic statistical concepts.)
  5. Below the number mentioned in question 3 above, 0.04 appears in parentheses. What does this number measure? (Hint: Take a look at page 45 of the Chapter Appendix and note the formula in footnote 17. The formula that appears here is important and you’ll be returning to it again and again in this course; for now we mainly just want to introduce you to the concept and show you where to find the formulas for when you need to calculate these values yourself.)