The Importance of Sensitivity Analysis in Empirical Practice

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Lemur had a huge impact on me and I think on empirical work all to the good that he is complaining about the kind of arbitrariness of what I report. He was proposing a fairly conventional, I thought, Bayesian approach where you would state your priors and you would then show how that maps. But he also had the idea that we should show many variations. A core concept in my work with, in my writing with Steve and the research methods that I think are most effective is the notion of design.

Joshua Angrist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology talks to EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the craft of econometrics--how to use economic thinking and statistical methods to make sense of data and uncover causation. Angrist argues that improvements in research design along with various econometric techniques have improved the credibility of measurement in a complex world. Roberts pushes back and the conversation concludes with a discussion of how to assess the reliability of findings in controversial public policy areas.