Statistics & Econometrics

Created
Tue, 26/08/2025 - 06:49
In 1958, with the publication of the twenty-fifth volume of Econometrica, Trygve Haavelmo assessed the role of econometrics in advancing economics. While he praised its ‘repair work’ and ‘clearing-up work,’ he also found reason for despair: We have found certain general principles which would seem to make good sense. Essentially, these principles are based on […]
Created
Tue, 26/08/2025 - 19:24
With the above cautions in mind, we may view each statistical analysis as a thought experiment in a fictional “small world” or “toy example” sharply restricted by its simplifying assumptions. The questions that motivated the study must be translated properly into this fictional world; statistical methods then answer the questions via mathematical deductions from the […]
Created
Wed, 20/08/2025 - 18:15
As has been long and widely emphasized in various terms … frequentism and Bayesianism are incomplete both as learning theories and as philosophies of statistics, in the pragmatic sense that each alone are insufficient for all sound applications. Notably, causal justifications are the foundation for classical frequentism, which demands that all model constraints be deduced […]
Created
Fri, 15/08/2025 - 20:43
There are three fundamental differences between statistical and causal assumptions. First, statistical assumptions, even untested, are testable in principle, given sufficiently large sample and sufficiently fine measurements. Causal assumptions, in contrast, cannot be verified even in principle, unless one resorts to experimental control … Second, statistical assumptions can be expressed in the familiar language of […]
Created
Wed, 18/06/2025 - 19:07
According to Guy Routh, econometrics is nothing but “mock empiricism, with statistics subjected to econometric torture until they admit to effects of which they are innocent.” Similarly, Mark Blaug in his The Methodology of Economics argued that econometric testing is like “playing tennis with the net down.” Although these are rather harsh judgments, I believe […]
Created
Wed, 28/05/2025 - 02:27
It’s true — as Sander Greenland notes in a comment on an earlier post of mine — that the  potential outcomes and the interventionist accounts of causality should not be “seen as identical.” But — although they differ in emphasis and formalism, the connection between them is both strong and conceptually intertwined. Guido Imbens, a […]