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Journal ArticleDOI

An Illustration of a Pitfall in Estimating the Effects of Aggregate Variables on Micro Units

Brent R. Moulton
- 01 May 1990 - 
- Vol. 72, Iss: 2, pp 334-338
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TLDR
The authors illustrates the danger of spurious regression from this kind of misspecification, using as an example a wage regression estimated on data for individual workers that includes in the specification aggregate regressors for characteristics of geographical states.
Abstract
Many economic researchers have attempted to measure the effect of aggregate market or public policy variables on micro units by merging aggregate data with micro observations by industry, occupation, or geographical location, then using multiple regression or similar statistical models to measure the effect of the aggregate variable on the micro units. The methods are usually based upon the assumption of independent disturbances, which is typically not appropriate for data from populations with grouped structure. Incorrectly using ordinary least squares can lead to standard errors that are seriously biased downward. This note illustrates the danger of spurious regression from this kind of misspecification, using as an example a wage regression estimated on data for individual workers that includes in the specification aggregate regressors for characteristics of geographical states. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.

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Book ChapterDOI

Investment in Education—Inputs and Incentives*

TL;DR: In this article, the authors assess the current state of empirical knowledge, and gaps in that knowledge, on educational incentives and inputs in developing countries as related to such questions, and assess the benefits relative to the resource costs of alternative policies for improving educational inputs.
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The Effect of Crime on Life Satisfaction

TL;DR: The authors found that while being burglarized has a large and significant effect on a victim's overall life satisfaction, neither county-level crime rates nor neighborhood safety appear to have very large effects on daily life satisfaction for the average American.
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The influence of local price and availability on parents' choice of child care

TL;DR: For instance, this article found that the types of care chosen by mothers who are not in the paid labor force differ substantially from the choices of employed mothers, and their use of center care is influenced by the prices of both center and family providers.
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Sanitation and externalities: evidence from early childhood health in rural India.

TL;DR: A sample of children under 48 months in rural areas of India from the Third Round of District Level Household Survey 2007-08 is used and finds evidence of positive and significant direct benefits and concave positive external effects for both improved sanitation and fixed-point defecation.
Report SeriesDOI

Exploring Determinants of Subjective Wellbeing in OECD Countries: Evidence from the World Value Survey

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored issues with assessing wellbeing in OECD countries based on self-reported life satisfaction surveys in a pooled regression over time and countries, at the country level and the OECD average and found that, apart from income, the state of health, not being unemployed, and social relationships are particularly important for wellbeing with only some differences across countries.
References
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Book

Statistical abstract of the United States

TL;DR: The Red River of the North basin of the Philippines was considered a part of the Louisiana Purchase by the United States Department of Commerce in the 1939 Census Atlas of the United Philippines as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI

Elements of Econometrics.

TL;DR: The Elements of Econometrics as mentioned in this paper is a textbook for upper-level undergraduate and master's degree courses and may usefully serve as a supplement for traditional Ph.D. courses in economics.
Book

Elements of econometrics

Jan Kmenta
TL;DR: The emphasis is on simplification whenever possible, assuming the readers know college algebra and basic calculus, and Jan Kmenta explains all methods within the simplest framework, and generalizations are presented as logical extensions of simple cases.
Journal ArticleDOI

Maximum Likelihood Approaches to Variance Component Estimation and to Related Problems

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a restricted maximum likelihood (reml) approach which takes into account the loss in degrees of freedom resulting from estimating fixed effects, and developed a satisfactory asymptotic theory for estimators of variance components.
Journal ArticleDOI

Random group effects and the precision of regression estimates

TL;DR: The authors analyzes several empirical examples to investigate the applicability of random effects models and the consequences of inappropriately using ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation in the presence of random group effects.