The Financial Expert™ Best Econometrics Book Challenge is a well-loved feature of this website.

It's a really pleasant way to tackle any academic topic. It's a challenge which encourages you to cease dancing around the edges of a discipline and really throw yourself in!

Here's the challenge: 

I challenge you to read one econometrics book per month for the next year, and find your new favourite!

That's the challenge. Now do you accept?

In reality, you can broaden the subject range of the challenge to match your learning or studies. For example, if you are studying for an economics undergraduate course, it might make sense to include macro and microeconomics textbooks alongside the econometrics books featured above. 

It's about creating your own learning path, sculpting your own econometrics curriculum. By being picky and strategic about the econometrics titles you choose to read (and in which order), you can take control over your own education and accelerate your progress. 

Reading lists in universities tend to be thrown at students with little expectation that they will be actually used. I've witnessed economics professors hand out the list and call it 'optional', and so you can imagine what happened as a result. 

Nobody read anything on that list. 

The best econometrics textbooks challenge is about taking on a sense of personal ownership for what you want and will read, rather than having it dictated for you.

If you're reading subjects that you're genuinely interested in, and buying books that really 'jump off the shelf' at you, then you can be sure that your econometrics knowledge is going to advance in leaps and bound. 

Some guidance

I recommend you don't follow a single author, or even a single ideology when selecting your books. 

The authors of textbooks and beginners guides tend to leave their 'personal opinions' on the editing room floor. However, many titles, such as Capital and Black Swan are more personal, and include an agenda. 

It would slightly distort the quality of your education if you learned within a single school of thought, as if you were reading inside an intellectual bubble. 

Look for contradictory perspectives and read both sides - let your brain decide the victor of the argument. 

Where to begin?

My list of the 5 best econometrics books above is as good as any place to start, as I have consciously included a mix of different writing and investing styles to ensure that it caters to a wide audience.

Good luck!