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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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Household division of labor and cross-country differences in household formation rates

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the extent to which the gender division of labor affects the likelihood of household formation and find that more egalitarian women are less likely to form a household, while more egalitarian men are more likely to do so.
Report SeriesDOI

The effect of education policy on crime: an intergenerational perspective

TL;DR: In this article, the effects of a major Swedish educational reform on crime by exploiting its staggered implementation across Sweden were investigated. And they showed that the benefits extended to the next generation with large reductions in the crime rates of the children of those affected.
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Do Foreign Firms Crowd Out Domestic Firms? Evidence from the Czech Republic

TL;DR: The authors analyzes the impact of foreign presence on growth and survival of domestic firms, and analyzes whether the crowding out effect is dynamic, i.e., domestic firms cut production over time as foreign firms grow, or a static effect realized upon foreign entry into the industry.
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Disability Insurance Benefits and Labor Supply: Some Additional Evidence

TL;DR: The authors examined the effects of a change in the Canada/Quebec Pension Plan (C/QPP) disability benefits on the labor supply of older Canadian workers and found that disability benefits are not associated with a large increase in the nonparticipation of older men.
Journal ArticleDOI

Benefit entitlement and unemployment duration

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate a unique policy change that prolonged entitlement to regular unemployment benefits from 30 weeks to a maximum of 209 weeks for elderly individuals in certain regions of Austria, explicitly accounting for the fact that the program was an endogenous policy response to deteriorating labor market conditions for older workers.
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.