IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v64y1970i04p1099-1111_13.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Causal Approach to Nonrandom Measurement Errors

Author

Listed:
  • Blalock, H. M.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine several specific kinds of nonrandom measurement errors and to note their implications for causal model construction. In doing so, my secondary purpose is to sensitize the reader to the crucial importance of making one's assumptions fully explicit and to the advantages of a causal models approach to measurement errors. It is well known that the presence of even random measurement errors can produce serious distortions in our estimates, particularly whenever one is attempting to assess the relative contributions of intercorrelated independent variables. Nevertheless, common practice is to utilize what Duncan refers to as the naive approach to the presence of measurement errors: that of acknowledging the existence of measurement errors, and even discussing possible sources of such errors, while completely ignoring them in the analysis stage of the research process. That is, measured values are inserted directly into causal models as though they adequately reflect the true values. It can easily be shown that such a practice, while leading to important simplifications, can readily lead one astray. In particular, it may blind the analyst to searching for alternative plausible explanations that allow for measurement error. There have been a number of very recent papers in the sociological literature, some of which will be briefly summarized since they may not be familiar to the reader. For the most part, these papers have dealt rather systematically with ways to handle random measurement errors, whereas nonrandom errors have been dealt with only incidentally and much less carefully.

Suggested Citation

  • Blalock, H. M., 1970. "A Causal Approach to Nonrandom Measurement Errors," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(4), pages 1099-1111, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:64:y:1970:i:04:p:1099-1111_13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055400133362/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. H.T. Reynolds, 1974. "Nonparametric Partial Correlation and Causal Analysis," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 2(3), pages 376-392, February.
    2. Davis B. Bobrow & P. Terrence Hopmann & Roger W. Benjamin & Bonald A. Sylvan, 1973. "The Impact of Foreign Assistance on National Development and International Conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 1(1), pages 39-60, February.
    3. Liesbet Hooghe & Gary Marks, 2012. "Beyond Federalism - Estimating and Explaining the Territorial Structure of Government," KFG Working Papers p0037, Free University Berlin.
    4. Kenneth Bollen & Richard Schwing, 1987. "Air pollution-mortality models: A demonstration of the effects of random measurement error," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 37-48, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:64:y:1970:i:04:p:1099-1111_13. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.