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Default Priors and Predictive Performance in Bayesian Model Averaging, with Application to Growth Determinants

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Author Info
Theo Eicher
Chris Papageogiou
Adrian E Raftery
Abstract

Economic growth has been a showcase of model uncertainty, given the many competing theories and candidate regressors that have been proposed to explain growth. Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) addresses model uncertainty as part of the empirical strategy, but its implementation is subject to the choice of priors: the priors for the parameters in each model, and the prior over the model space. For a well-known growth dataset, we show that model choice can be sensitive to the prior specification, but that economic significance (model-averaged inference about regression coefficients) is quite robust to the choice of prior. We provide a procedure to assess priors in terms of their predictive performance. The Unit Information Prior, combined with a uniform model prior outperformed other popular priors in the growth dataset and in simulated data. It also identified the richest set of growth determinants, supporting several new growth theories. We also show that there is a tradeoff between model and parameter priors, so that the results of reducing prior expected model size and increasing prior parameter variance are similar. Our branch-and-bound algorithm for implementing BMA was faster than the alternative coin flip importance sampling and MC3 algorithms, and was also more successful in identifying the best model.

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Paper provided by University of Washington, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number UWEC-2007-25-P.

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Date of creation: Aug 2007
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Publication status: Published in Journal of Applied Econometrics, Volume
Handle: RePEc:udb:wpaper:uwec-2007-25-p

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  1. Durlauf, Steven N. & Johnson, Paul A. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2005. "Growth Econometrics," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 555-677 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Fernandez, Carmen & Ley, Eduardo & Steel, Mark F. J., 2001. "Benchmark priors for Bayesian model averaging," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 381-427, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. P. J. Brown & M. Vannucci & T. Fearn, 2002. "Bayes model averaging with selection of regressors," Journal Of The Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 64(3), pages 519-536. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Liang, Feng & Paulo, Rui & Molina, German & Clyde, Merlise A. & Berger, Jim O., 2008. "Mixtures of g Priors for Bayesian Variable Selection," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103, pages 410-423, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. William A. Brock & Steven N. Durlauf & Kenneth D. West, 2003. "Policy Evaluation in Uncertain Economic Environments," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(2003-1), pages 235-322. [Downloadable!]
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  7. StevenN. Durlauf & Andros Kourtellos & ChihMing Tan, 2008. "Are Any Growth Theories Robust?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(527), pages 329-346, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Ley, Eduardo & Steel, Mark F.J., 2007. "Jointness in Bayesian variable selection with applications to growth regression," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 476-493, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Gneiting, Tilmann & Raftery, Adrian E., 2007. "Strictly Proper Scoring Rules, Prediction, and Estimation," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 102, pages 359-378, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Xavier Sala-I-Martin & Gernot Doppelhofer & Ronald I. Miller, 2004. "Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 813-835, September. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Mankiw, N Gregory & Romer, David & Weil, David N, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 407-37, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. repec:att:wimass:1920315 is not listed on IDEAS
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