Over at Econ Talk, Russ Roberts interviews James Heckman about censored data and other statistical issues. At one point, Roberts asks Heckman what he thinks of the current identification fad in economics (my phrasing). Heckman has a few insightful responses. One is that a lot of the “new methods” – experiments, instrumental variables, etc. are not new at all. Also, experiments need to be done with care and the results need to be properly contextualized. A lot of economists and identification obsessed folks think that “the facts speak for themselves.” Not true. Supposedly clean experiments can be understand in the wrong way.
For me, the most interesting section of the interview is when Heckman makes a distinction between statistics and econometrics. Here’s his example:
- Identification – statistics, not economics. The point of identification is to ensure that your correlation is not attributable to an unobserved variable. This is either a…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Mar 24, 2016 @ 15:01:53
great article. Definitely on my Around the traps with attribution to you.
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Mar 24, 2016 @ 16:02:32
You should follow the blog. It is excellent especially the past posts. You can spend an hour there
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