Book excerpt: Originally published in 1978. This book is designed to enable students on main courses in economics to comprehend literature which employs econometric techniques as a method of analysis, to use econometric techniques themselves to test hypotheses about economic relationships and to understand some of the difficulties involved in interpreting results. While the book is mainly aimed at second-year undergraduates undertaking courses in applied economics, its scope is sufficiently wide to take in students at postgraduate level who have no background in econometrics - it integrates fully the mathematical and statistical techniques used in econometrics with micro- and macroeconomic case studies.