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ERIC Number: EJ1212201
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019-May
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0049-1241
EISSN: N/A
The Difference between Causal Analysis and Predictive Models: Response to "Comment on Young and Holsteen (2017)"
Young, Cristobal
Sociological Methods & Research, v48 n2 p431-447 May 2019
The commenter's proposal may be a reasonable method for addressing uncertainty in predictive modeling, where the goal is to predict "y." In a treatment effects framework, where the goal is causal inference by conditioning-on-observables, the commenter's proposal is deeply flawed. The proposal (1) ignores the definition of omitted-variable bias, thus systematically omitting critical kinds of controls; (2) assumes for convenience there are no bad controls in the model space, thus waving off the premise of model uncertainty; and (3) deletes virtually all alternative models to select a single model with the highest R[superscript 2]. Rather than showing what model assumptions are necessary to support one's preferred results, this proposal favors biased parameter estimates and deletes alternative results before anyone has a chance to see them. In a treatment effects framework, this is not model robustness analysis but simply biased model selection. [For "The Difference between Instability and Uncertainty: Comment on Young and Holsteen (2017)" (Adam Slez), see EJ1212204.]
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A