Presidential Address: Economics and Measurement: New Measures to Model Decision Making

IF 6.6 1区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Econometrica Pub Date : 2024-07-30 DOI:10.3982/ECTA21528

Ingvild Almås, Orazio Attanasio, Pamela Jervis

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Most empirical work in economics has considered only a narrow set of measures as meaningful and useful to characterize individual behavior, a restriction justified by the difficulties in collecting a wider set. However, this approach often forces the use of strong assumptions to estimate the parameters that inform individual behavior and identify causal links. In this paper, we argue that a more flexible and broader approach to measurement could be extremely useful and allow the estimation of richer and more realistic models that rest on weaker identifying assumptions. We argue that the design of measurement tools should interact with, and depend on, the models economists use. Measurement is not a substitute for rigorous theory, it is an important complement to it, and should be developed in parallel to it. We illustrate these arguments with a model of parental behavior estimated on pilot data that combines conventional measures with novel ones.

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主席致辞：经济学与测量：模拟决策的新措施

经济学中的大多数实证研究都认为，只有一小部分措施对描述个人行为特征有意义且有用，这种限制的理由是很难收集到更广泛的措施。然而，这种方法往往迫使人们使用强有力的假设来估算个人行为的参数，并找出因果联系。在本文中，我们认为一种更灵活、更广泛的测量方法可能非常有用，它可以在较弱的识别假设基础上估算出更丰富、更现实的模型。我们认为，测量工具的设计应与经济学家使用的模型相互作用，并取决于这些模型。测量不能替代严谨的理论，它是严谨理论的重要补充，应与严谨理论同步发展。我们用一个根据试点数据估算的父母行为模型来说明这些论点，该模型结合了传统的测量方法和新颖的测量方法。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Econometrica 社会科学-数学跨学科应用

CiteScore

11.00

自引率

3.30%

发文量

审稿时长

6-12 weeks

期刊介绍： Econometrica publishes original articles in all branches of economics - theoretical and empirical, abstract and applied, providing wide-ranging coverage across the subject area. It promotes studies that aim at the unification of the theoretical-quantitative and the empirical-quantitative approach to economic problems and that are penetrated by constructive and rigorous thinking. It explores a unique range of topics each year - from the frontier of theoretical developments in many new and important areas, to research on current and applied economic problems, to methodologically innovative, theoretical and applied studies in econometrics. Econometrica maintains a long tradition that submitted articles are refereed carefully and that detailed and thoughtful referee reports are provided to the author as an aid to scientific research, thus ensuring the high calibre of papers found in Econometrica. An international board of editors, together with the referees it has selected, has succeeded in substantially reducing editorial turnaround time, thereby encouraging submissions of the highest quality. We strongly encourage recent Ph. D. graduates to submit their work to Econometrica. Our policy is to take into account the fact that recent graduates are less experienced in the process of writing and submitting papers.