Tag Archives: Statistics & Econometrics

Keynes on the limits​ of econometric methods Am I right in thinking that the method of multiple correlation analysis essentially depends on the economist having furnished, not merely a list of the significant causes, which is correct so far as it goes, but a complete list? For example, suppose three factors are taken into account, it is not enough that these should be in fact vera causa; there must be no other significant factor. If there is a further...

We recommend dropping the NHST [null hypothesis significance testing] paradigm — and the p-value thresholds associated with it — as the default statistical paradigm for research, publication, and discovery in the biomedical and social sciences. Specifically, rather than allowing statistical signicance as determined by p < 0.05 (or some other statistical threshold) to serve as a lexicographic decision rule in scientic publication and statistical decision making more broadly...

Handy missing data methodologies On October 13, 2012, Manny Fernandez reported in The New York Times that former El Paso schools superintendent Lorenzo Garcia was sentenced to prison for his role in orchestrating​ a testing scandal. The Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) is a state-mandated test for high-school sophomores. The TAKS missing data algorithm was to treat missing data as missing-at-random, and hence the score for the entire school...

Parachutes do not reduce death when jumping from aircraft Parachute use compared with a backpack control did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when used by participants jumping from aircraft in this first randomized evaluation of the intervention. This largely resulted from our ability to only recruit participants jumping from stationary aircraft on the ground. When beliefs regarding the effectiveness of an intervention exist in the community,...

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Statistics is no substitute for thinking The cost of computing has dropped exponentially, but the cost of thinking is what it always was. That is why we see so many articles with so many regressions and so little thought. Zvi Griliches

Confessions of scientific​ fraud Even with my various “grey” methods for “improving” the data, I wasn’t able to get the results the way I wanted them. I couldn’t resist the temptation to go a step further. I wanted it so badly … I opened the file with the data that I had entered and changed an unexpected 2 into a 4; then, a little further along, I changed a 3 into a 5. It didn’t feel right. I looked around me nervously. The data danced in front of my eyes....

Why your friends are more popular than you are  [embedded content]

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Deborah Mayo on statistical significance testing [embedded content] Although yours truly appreciate much of Mayo’s philosophical-statistical work, it is essential to remember that her qualified use of ‘severe testing’ actually is pretty far from​ the usual day to day practice of significance testing among applied social scientists today. If, however, statistics​ users stuck to Mayo’s ‘severe testing,’ there would be less reason to criticize the modern...