IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/jcreco/302917.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Omitted Variable Bias and Wartime Legacies. A Reply to Malesky and Nguyen (Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics, 2024)

Author

Listed:
  • Barceló, Joan

Abstract

Malesky and Nguyen (2024, Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics, MN) reassess a study on the effects of wartime violence on civic engagement in Vietnam, attributing discrepancies in previous findings to coding and historical errors. They argue that prewar party strength, rather than wartime exposure, drives contemporary civic engagement. However, their reanalysis omits key geographic covariates, which are essential for the validity of the original study's quasi-experimental design and were included in both Barceló (2021) and Miguel and Roland (2011). MN claim that the control variables South and Latitude are collinear and therefore drop both from their models. This is an elementary mistake: collinearity between control variables does not affect the treatment effect (Distance) and should not impact its estimation. Even if collinearity were an issue, the appropriate response would be to remove only one of the collinear variables, not both. This misspecification leads to omitted variable bias and a violation of the exclusion restriction of the instrumental variable model. Once this omission is corrected and either South or Latitude, or both, are properly accounted for, the originally reported results withstand all of MN's other proposed modifications, including controlling for prewar party strength, excluding zone IV provinces, and adjusting standard error clustering, among others. This study confirms that wartime exposure enhanced long-term civic engagement in Vietnam and highlights how improper model specifications can produce biased estimates that may obscure, rather than clarify, our understanding of the legacy of historical events.

Suggested Citation

  • Barceló, Joan, 2024. "Omitted Variable Bias and Wartime Legacies. A Reply to Malesky and Nguyen (Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics, 2024)," Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics (JCRE), ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 3(2024-7), pages 1-39.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:jcreco:302917
    DOI: 10.18718/81781.37
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/302917/1/JCRE-2024-7.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.18718/81781.37?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    2. Miguel, Edward & Roland, Gérard, 2011. "The long-run impact of bombing Vietnam," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 1-15, September.
    3. Bellows, John & Miguel, Edward, 2009. "War and local collective action in Sierra Leone," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1144-1157, December.
    4. John Bellows & Edward Miguel, 2006. "War and Institutions: New Evidence from Sierra Leone," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 394-399, May.
    5. Brambor, Thomas & Clark, William Roberts & Golder, Matt, 2006. "Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(1), pages 63-82, January.
    6. Jacob M. Montgomery & Brendan Nyhan & Michelle Torres, 2018. "How Conditioning on Posttreatment Variables Can Ruin Your Experiment and What to Do about It," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(3), pages 760-775, July.
    7. Giacomo De Luca & Marijke Verpoorten, 2015. "Civil War and Political Participation: Evidence from Uganda," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(1), pages 113-141.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ji Yeon Hong & Woo Chang Kang, 2017. "Trauma and stigma: The long-term effects of wartime violence on political attitudes," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(3), pages 264-286, May.
    2. Achyuta Adhvaryu & James Fenske, 2014. "Conflict and the Formation of Political Beliefs in Africa," HiCN Working Papers 164, Households in Conflict Network.
    3. Tilman Br�ck & Patricia Justino & Philip Verwimp & Andrew Tedesco & Alexandra Avdeenko, 2013. "Measuring Conflict Exposure in Micro-Level Surveys," HiCN Working Papers 153, Households in Conflict Network.
    4. Stergios Skaperdas, 2011. "The costs of organized violence: a review of the evidence," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-23, March.
    5. Alacevich, Caterina & Zejcirovic, Dijana, 2020. "Does violence against civilians depress voter turnout? Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 841-865.
    6. Calvo, Thomas & Lavallée, Emmanuelle & Razafindrakoto, Mireille & Roubaud, François, 2020. "Fear Not For Man? Armed conflict and social capital in Mali," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 251-276.
    7. Appau, Samuelson & Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Smyth, Russell & Trinh, Trong-Anh, 2021. "The long-term impact of the Vietnam War on agricultural productivity," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    8. Massimiliano Bratti & Mariapia Mendola & Alfonso Miranda, 2015. "Hard to Forget: the Long-Lasting Impact of War on Mental Health," Development Working Papers 388, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    9. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    10. Christian Ochsner, 2023. "Hostility, Population Sorting, and Backwardness: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Red Army after WWII," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp768, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    11. Achyuta Adhvaryu & James Fenske, 2013. "War, resilience and political engagement in Africa," CSAE Working Paper Series 2013-08, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    12. Rehman, Faiz Ur & Vanin, Paolo, 2017. "Terrorism risk and democratic preferences in Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 95-106.
    13. Yamamura, Eiji, 2013. "Atomic bombs and the long-run effect on trust: Experiences in Hiroshima and Nagasaki," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 17-24.
    14. Conzo, Pierluigi & Salustri, Francesco, 2019. "A war is forever: The long-run effects of early exposure to World War II on trust," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    15. Awaworyi Churchill, Sefa & Munyanyi, Musharavati Ephraim & Smyth, Russell & Trinh, Trong-Anh, 2021. "Early life shocks and entrepreneurship: Evidence from the Vietnam War," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 506-518.
    16. Cruzatti C., John & Bjørnskov, Christian & Sáenz de Viteri, Andrea & Cruzatti, Christian, 2024. "Geography, development, and power: Parliament leaders and local clientelism," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    17. Akresh, Richard & Lucchetti, Leonardo & Thirumurthy, Harsha, 2012. "Wars and child health: Evidence from the Eritrean–Ethiopian conflict," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 330-340.
    18. Pedro Naso & Erwin Bulte & Tim Swanson, 2017. "Can there be benefits from competing legal regimes? The impact of legal pluralism in post-conflict Sierra Leone," CIES Research Paper series 56-2017, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    19. Stefano Costalli & Luigi Moretti & Costantino Pischedda, 2014. "The Economic Costs of Civil War: Synthetic Counterfactual Evidence and the Effects of Ethnic Fractionalization," HiCN Working Papers 184, Households in Conflict Network.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Conflict; Civic engagement; Vietnam War; Historical legacies; Omitted Variable Bias;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P0 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General
    • P2 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies
    • P3 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions
    • P5 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems
    • N0 - Economic History - - General

    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:zbw:jcreco:302917. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.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.