Tag Archives: regression

Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action A wonderful back and forth between David Evans and DFID Deputy Chief Economist Nick Lea, ostensibly about regressions, but to me resonated more broadly on methods. Papers seem to have to need the magical pixie dust of a regression to get accepted for publication, but is it the case that every problem in development is a nail waiting for a regression hammer? Lea wonders if methods are constraining the kinds of questions economists...

Personally, I won’t decide whether I am suspicious of the linear regression until someone tells me whether the slope is statistically significant. Also, if there are multiple explanatory variables that affect an outcome, a scatter plot that only looks at one of them at a time will generally looks like a mess even when all of the variables are individually important. In related news, this is a good opportunity to talk about the distinction between estimated effects (i.e. regression...