In Fall of 2016 I played songs before each and every one of my 27 Applied Econometrics lectures. They weren’t exactly inspired by the subject, but each one has some connection to the topic of the day. You can also find a slightly abridged (i.e., no Tool) version of the playlist on Spotify. If you don’t like Spotify, there are Youtube links below.

Week 1: Probabilities and Random Variables

• “Lateralus” (Tool): Just an awesome song about thinking deeply about the world; Finding order in chaos. It kills me that Tool hasn’t yet put their music on Spotify,

    Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
    Reaching out to embrace the random.
    Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.

• “Take a Chance on Me” (Abba): A little schlocky and maybe a little needy, but definitely fun

Week 2: Estimation and Hypothesis Testing

• “Normal Person” (Arcade Fire): Perfect for introducing the normal distribution

• “Confident” (Demi Lovato): Great energy and nice segue into confidence intervals

Week 3: Introduction to Regression Analysis

• “Just the Two of Us” (Grover Washington Jr): For bivariate regression

• “Cool Kids” (Echosmith): All about fitting in when we talk about measuring model fit

Week 4: Statistical Inference in Regression

• “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” (The Clash): Decision theory anyone?

• “Hip to be Square” (Huey Lewis and the News): Ordinary Least Squares of course

Week 5: Review

• “One More Time” (Daft Punk)

Week 6: Multiple Regression

• “Independent Women, Pt. 1” (Destiny’s Child): Time to introduce multiple independent variables

• “Put it to the Test” (They Might Be Giants): This one’s extra-relevant and extra-nerdy.

Week 7: Model Building in Practice

• “Miss Independent (Kelly Clarkson)”: More about independent variables

• “Control” (Janet Jackson): How can you talk about control variables without playing one of the best songs of all time? Who is that eatin that nasty fruit?

Week 8: Assessing Validity in Regression Models

• “I’m Alright” (Kenny Loggins): Is this regression model really all right?

• “Something New” (Zendaya, featuring Chris Brown): We’re trying to decide whether to introduce something new into our regression model.

Week 9: Randomized Experiments

• “Chemistry” (Semisonic): Chemistry experiments aren’t that different from economic experiments.

• “Do It Again” (Steely Dan): You have to run the run the experiment once for the treatment group and then do it again for the control group.

Week 10: Review

• “I Got You (I Feel Good)” (James Brown): You need positive energy to review material and no one has more than James Brown.

Week 11: Binary Dependent Variables

• “Maybe Baby” (Buddy Holly and the Crickets): Either you’re right or wrong.

• “Binary” (Assemblage 23): I love this band, even if no one else have ever heard of them.

Week 12: Instrumental Variables

• “Summer Madness” (Kool and the Gang): One of my favorite instrumental songs

• “Eruption” (Van Halen): Another great instrumental

Week 13: Panel Data

• “When Will I See You Again” (The Three Degrees): When you observe the same person in multiple time periods, you’ve got panel data.

• “Same Girl” (Jennifer Lopez): Even after many years, she’s still Jenny from the block.

Week 14: Difference in Differences

• “Is There a Difference?” (Howard Jones)

Week 15: Regression Discontinuity

• “Dweller on the Threshold” (Van Morrison): RD is all about observing differences in outcomes across a threshold.

• “New Song” (Howard Jones): The perfect song to end the class since it’s really launching students into the world with a brand new set of tools.

    I've been waiting for so long
    To come here now and sing this song
    Don't be fooled by what you see
    Don't be fooled by what you hear

    This is a song to all my friends
    They take the challenge to their hearts
    Challenging preconceived ideas
    Saying goodbye to long standing fears

    Don't crack up, bend your brain, see both sides
    Throw off your mental chains

    I don't want to be hip and cool
    I don't want to play by the rules 
    Not under the thumb of the cynical few
    Or laden down by the doom crew
 

Big thank you to everyone who suggested songs including Zara Contractor, Gabriel Zucker, Sampada KC, and Jake McKenzie!