Review of Ray Fair, Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things

Ray Fair is one of my favorite econometricians. He has an excellent website, fairmodel.econ.yale.edu,where he freely shares his models. He writes clearly and his methods are reported in detail. He is concerned with the proper use of econometric methods. For example, he has long been opposed to the common practice of making ex post subjective adjustments to forecasts from econometric models. A review of empirical evidence supports his position (Armstrong and Collopy 1998). The book is aimed at novices, which is potentially a large audience. Fair captivates the reader by showing how econometrics can be used for everyday life. This includes predicting votes in U.S. presidential elections, the quality of wine in France, whether people are likely to have extramarital affairs, how fast you can run a marathon, how attendance at college relates to grades, interest rates, and inflation.