IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/somere/v36y2008i3p362-401.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Mechanism-Based Approach to the Identification of Age–Period–Cohort Models

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Winship

    (Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, cwinship@wjh.harvard.edu)

  • David J. Harding

    (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

Abstract

This article offers a new approach to the identification of age–period–cohort (APC) models that builds on Pearl's work on nonparametric causal models, in particular his front-door criterion for the identification of causal effects. The goal is to specify the mechanisms through which the age, period, and cohort variables affect the outcome and in doing so identify the model. This approach allows for a broader set of identification strategies than has typically been considered in the literature and, in many circumstances, goodness of fit tests are possible. The authors illustrate the utility of the approach by developing an APC model for political alienation.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Winship & David J. Harding, 2008. "A Mechanism-Based Approach to the Identification of Age–Period–Cohort Models," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 36(3), pages 362-401, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:somere:v:36:y:2008:i:3:p:362-401
    DOI: 10.1177/0049124107310635
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124107310635
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0049124107310635?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Maarten J. Bijlsma & Rhian M. Daniel & Fanny Janssen & Bianca L. De Stavola, 2017. "An Assessment and Extension of the Mechanism-Based Approach to the Identification of Age-Period-Cohort Models," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 721-743, April.
    2. Liying Luo & James Hodges, 2019. "The Age-Period-Cohort-Interaction Model for Describing and Investigating Inter-Cohort Deviations and Intra-Cohort Life-Course Dynamics," Papers 1906.08357, arXiv.org.
    3. Manfred Grotenhuis & Ben Pelzer & Liying Luo & Alexander W. Schmidt-Catran, 2016. "The Intrinsic Estimator, Alternative Estimates, and Predictions of Mortality Trends: A Comment on Masters, Hummer, Powers, Beck, Lin, and Finch," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(4), pages 1245-1252, August.
    4. Dong Zhou, 2016. "The Long-term Impacts of the Cultural Revolution: A Micro-Analysis," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 30(3), pages 285-317, September.
    5. Dregan, Alex & Armstrong, David, 2009. "Age, cohort and period effects in the prevalence of sleep disturbances among older people: The impact of economic downturn," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(10), pages 1432-1438, November.
    6. Keyes, Katherine M. & Utz, Rebecca L. & Robinson, Whitney & Li, Guohua, 2010. "What is a cohort effect? Comparison of three statistical methods for modeling cohort effects in obesity prevalence in the United States, 1971-2006," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(7), pages 1100-1108, April.
    7. Yu-Han Jao & Jui-Chung Allen Li, 2011. "Trends in the Employment of Married Mothers of Preschool-Aged Children in Taiwan," Working Papers WR-850, RAND Corporation.
    8. Ethan Fosse & Christopher Winship, 2019. "Bounding Analyses of Age-Period-Cohort Effects," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(5), pages 1975-2004, October.
    9. Whittaker, William & Birch, Stephen & MacKenzie, Adrian & Murphy, Gail Tomblin, 2016. "Cohort effects on the need for health care and implications for health care planning in Canada," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 81-88.
    10. Maarten J. Bijlsma & Rhian Daniel & Fanny Janssen & Bianca De Stavola, 2016. "An assessment and extension of the mechanism-based approach to the identification of age-period-cohort models," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2016-005, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.

    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:sae:somere:v:36:y:2008:i:3:p:362-401. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.