Practice Ahead of Theory: Instrumental Variables, Natural Experiments and Inductivism in Econometrics
نویسندگان
چکیده
This paper argues that the field of econometrics divides into camps of sinners and preachers. Specifically, I look at two sins condemned by the preachers: the making of causal background assumptions when identifying parameters for estimation and the estimation of parameters that have no or little theoretical significance. I argue that practitioners in the natural experiments literature happily commit these sins and that this is for the good of the discipline.
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