Econometrics is too mathematical; it' s the reason my best friend isn' t majoring in eco-nomics.There are two things you are better off not watching in the making:sausages and economet-ric estimates.Econometrics may be defined as the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena.It's my experience that 'economy-tricks' is usually nothing more than a justification of what the author believed before the research was begun.Obviously,econometrics means different things to different people.To beginning students,it may seem as if econometrics is an overly complex obstacle to an otherwise useful education.To skeptical observers,econometric results should be trusted only when the steps that produced those results are completely known.To professionals in the field,econometrics is a fascinating set of techniques that allows the measurement and analysis of economic phenomena and the prediction of future economic trends.You're probably thinking that such diverse points of view sound like the statements of blind people trying to describe an elephant based on which part they happen to be touching,and you' re partially right.Econometrics has both a formal definition and a larger context.Although you can eas-ily memorize the formal definition,you' 11 get the complete picture only by understanding the many uses of and alternative approaches to econometrics.