This book provides a language and a set of tools for finding bounds
on the predictions that social and behavioral scientists can
logically make from nonexperimental and experimental data. The
economist Charles Manski draws on examples from criminology,
demography, epidemiology, social psychology, and sociology as well
as economics to illustrate this language and to demonstrate the
broad usefulness of the tools.
There are many traditional ways to present identification
problems in econometrics, sociology, and psychometrics. Some of
these are primarily statistical in nature, using concepts such as
flat likelihood functions and nondistinct parameter estimates.
Manski's strategy is to divorce identification from purely
statistical concepts and to present the logic of identification
analysis in ways that are accessible to a wide audience in the
social and behavioral sciences. In each case, problems are
motivated by real examples with real policy importance, the
mathematics is kept to a minimum, and the deductions on
identifiability are derived giving fresh insights.
Manski begins with the conceptual problem of extrapolating
predictions from one population to some new population or to the
future. He then analyzes in depth the fundamental selection problem
that arises whenever a scientist tries to predict the effects of
treatments on outcomes. He carefully specifies assumptions and
develops his nonparametric methods of bounding predictions. Manski
shows how these tools should be used to investigate common problems
such as predicting the effect of family structure on children's
outcomes and the effect of policing on crime rates.
Successive chapters deal with topics ranging fromthe use of
experiments to evaluate social programs, to the use of case-control
sampling by epidemiologists studying the association of risk
factors and disease, to the use of intentions data by demographers
seeking to predict future fertility. The book closes by examining
two central identification problems in the analysis of social
interactions: the classical simultaneity problem of econometrics
and the reflection problem faced in analyses of neighborhood and
contextual effects.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(1)
(4)
