Causal Parameters and Policy Analysis in Economcs: A Twentieth Century Retrospective / James L. Heckman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Heckman, James L.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w7333.

NBER working paper series no. w7333

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Causal Parameters and Policy Analysis in Economcs

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1999.

Summary:

The major contributions of twentieth century econometrics to knowledge were the definition of causal parameters when agents are constrained by resources and markets and causes are interrelated, the analysis of what is required to recover causal parameters from data (the identification problem), and clarification of the role of causal parameters in policy evaluation and in forecasting the effects of policies never previously experienced. This paper summarizes the development of those ideas by the Cowles Commission, the response to their work by structural econometricians and VAR econometricians, and the response to structural and VAR econometrics by calibrators, advocates of natural and social experiments, and by nonparametric econometricians and statisticians.

Notes:

Print version record

September 1999.