IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/erh/journl/v1y2009i1p5-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Limits of Econometrics

Author

Listed:
  • David A. Freedman

Abstract

In the social and behavioral sciences, far-reaching claims are often made for the superiority of advanced quantitative methods by those who manage to ignore the far-reaching assumptions behind the models. In section 2, we see there was considerable skepticism about disentangling causal processes by statistical modeling. Freedman (2005) examined several well-known modeling exercises, and discovered good reasons for skepticism. Some kinds of problems may yield to sophisticated statistical technique; others will not. The goal of empirical research is or should be to increase our understanding of the phenomena, rather than displaying our mastery of technique.

Suggested Citation

  • David A. Freedman, 2009. "Limits of Econometrics," International Econometric Review (IER), Econometric Research Association, vol. 1(1), pages 5-17, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:erh:journl:v:1:y:2009:i:1:p:5-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.era.org.tr/makaleler/99.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Alan B. Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 69-85, Fall.
    2. J. R. Hicks, 1940. "A Comment," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 8(1), pages 64-65.
    3. Steven Glazerman & Dan M. Levy & David Myers, 2003. "Nonexperimental Versus Experimental Estimates of Earnings Impacts," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 589(1), pages 63-93, September.
    4. Lomborg,Bjørn, 2001. "The Skeptical Environmentalist," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521010689, January.
    5. Schneider, Mark & Teske, Paul & Marschall, Melissa & Mintrom, Michael & Roch, Christine, 1997. "Institutional Arrangements and the Creation of Social Capital: The Effects of Public School Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(1), pages 82-93, March.
    6. Andrews,Donald W. K. & Stock,James H. (ed.), 2005. "Identification and Inference for Econometric Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844413, January.
    7. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    8. Brunner, Karl & Meltzer, Allan H., 1976. "The Phillips curve," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 1-18, January.
    9. William N. Evans & Robert M. Schwab, 1995. "Finishing High School and Starting College: Do Catholic Schools Make a Difference?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(4), pages 941-974.
    10. Pratt, John W. & Schlaifer, Robert, 1988. "On the interpretation and observation of laws," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1-2), pages 23-52.
    11. Arceneaux, Kevin & Gerber, Alan S. & Green, Donald P., 2006. "Comparing Experimental and Matching Methods Using a Large-Scale Voter Mobilization Experiment," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 37-62, January.
    12. Dewald, William G & Thursby, Jerry G & Anderson, Richard G, 1986. "Replication in Empirical Economics: The Journal of Money, Credit and Banking Project," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 587-603, September.
    13. repec:mpr:mprres:3694 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Gibson, James L., 1988. "Political Intolerance and Political Repression During the McCarthy Red Scare," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(2), pages 511-529, June.
    15. Joshua Angrist & Alan Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Working Papers 834, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    16. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    17. Elizabeth Ty Wilde & Robinson Hollister, 2007. "How close is close enough? Evaluating propensity score matching using data from a class size reduction experiment," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 455-477.
    18. James J. Heckman, 2000. "Causal Parameters and Policy Analysis in Economics: A Twentieth Century Retrospective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 45-97.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Benzarour, Choukri, 2014. "صياغة السياسات الاقتصادية الكلية في الجزائر: هل من حاجة إلى الاسترشاد بالنماذج الاقتصادية القياسية؟ [The formulation of macroeconomic policies in Algeria: Is it necessary to be guided by Macroecono," MPRA Paper 87071, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 29 May 2018.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David A. Freedman, 2004. "Graphical Models for Causation, and the Identification Problem," Evaluation Review, , vol. 28(4), pages 267-293, August.
    2. David A. Freedman, 2006. "Statistical Models for Causation," Evaluation Review, , vol. 30(6), pages 691-713, December.
    3. KAMKOUM, Arnaud Cedric, 2023. "The Federal Reserve’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis and its Effects: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis of the Impact of its Quantitative Easing Programs," Thesis Commons d7pvg, Center for Open Science.
    4. Husted, Lucas & Rogers, John & Sun, Bo, 2020. "Monetary policy uncertainty," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 20-36.
    5. David I. Stern, 2011. "From Correlation to Granger Causality," Crawford School Research Papers 1113, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    6. KAMKOUM, Arnaud Cedric, 2023. "The Federal Reserve’s Response to the Global Financial Crisis and Its Long-Term Impact: An Interrupted Time-Series Natural Experimental Analysis," OSF Preprints 53qbm, Center for Open Science.
    7. Kevin Hoover, 2005. "Economic Theory and Causal Inference," Working Papers 64, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    8. Kevin Hoover, 2005. "Economic Theory and Causal Inference," Working Papers 257, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    9. Bentour, El Mostafa, 2013. "Oil Prices, Drought Periods and Growth Forecasts in Morocco," MPRA Paper 52892, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Burke, Paul J. & Yang, Hewen, 2016. "The price and income elasticities of natural gas demand: International evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 466-474.
    11. Cathy Yi-Hsuan Chen & Thomas C. Chiang, 2017. "Surprises, sentiments, and the expectations hypothesis of the term structure of interest rates," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 1-28, July.
    12. Starck, Christian, 1991. "Specifying a Bayesian vector autoregression for short-run macroeconomic forecasting with an application to Finland," Research Discussion Papers 4/1991, Bank of Finland.
    13. Ericsson, Neil R & Hendry, David F & Mizon, Grayham E, 1998. "Exogeneity, Cointegration, and Economic Policy Analysis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 370-387, October.
    14. Sascha O. Becker, 2016. "Using instrumental variables to establish causality," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 250-250, April.
    15. In-Koo Cho & Kenneth Kasa, 2015. "Learning and Model Validation," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(1), pages 45-82.
    16. Leeper, Eric M. & Zha, Tao, 2003. "Modest policy interventions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1673-1700, November.
    17. Valérie Chauvin & Gaël Dupont & Éric Heyer & Mathieu Plane & Xavier Timbeau, 2002. "Le modèle France de l'OFCE. La nouvelle version : e-mod.fr," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 81(2), pages 245-300.
    18. Costa-Font, Joan & Jiménez-Martín, Sergi & Vilaplana-Prieto, Cristina, 2022. "Do Public Caregiving Subsidies and Supports affect the Provision of Care and Transfers?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    19. Ding, Hong, 2012. "Is government’s help for unemployed people helpful for the society? An Empirical Study on Macro Data of Public Unemployment Spending in OECD Nations," MPRA Paper 43132, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Huang, Qianqian & Jiang, Feng & Lie, Erik & Yang, Ke, 2014. "The role of investment banker directors in M&A," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(2), pages 269-286.

    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:erh:journl:v:1:y:2009:i:1:p:5-17. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: M. F. Cosar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eratrea.html .

    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.