External Validity in a Stochastic World: Evidence from Low-Income Countries.
We examine empirically the generalizability of internally valid micro-estimates of causal effects in a fixed population over time when that population is subject to aggregate shocks. Using panel data, we show that the returns to investments in agriculture in India and Ghana, small and medium non-far...
| Publicado en: | Review of Economic Studies Vol. 87; no. 1; pp. 343 - 382 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Jan2020
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=141055119&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 141055119 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00346527 REM jtl: Review of Economic Studies issn: 00346527 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jan2020 vid: 87 iid: 1 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 141055119 10.1093/restud/rdz021 ppf: 343 ppct: 39 formats: tig: atl: External Validity in a Stochastic World: Evidence from Low-Income Countries. aug: au: Rosenzweig, Mark R Udry, Christopher affil: Yale University Northwestern University su: Sri Lanka Ghana Indonesia Low-income countries Rainfall anomalies Sampling errors Rate of return Price fluctuations sug: subj: Sri Lanka Ghana Indonesia Low-income countries Rainfall anomalies Sampling errors Rate of return Price fluctuations keyword: Causal estimates External validity Causal estimates External validity ab: We examine empirically the generalizability of internally valid micro-estimates of causal effects in a fixed population over time when that population is subject to aggregate shocks. Using panel data, we show that the returns to investments in agriculture in India and Ghana, small and medium non-farm enterprises in Sri Lanka, and schooling in Indonesia fluctuate significantly across time periods. We show how the returns to these investments interact with specific, measurable, and economically relevant aggregate shocks, focusing on rainfall and price fluctuations. We also obtain lower-bound estimates of confidence intervals of the returns based on estimates of the parameters of the distributions of rainfall shocks in our two agricultural samples. We find that even these lower-bound confidence intervals are substantially wider than those based solely on sampling error that are commonly provided in studies, most of which are based on single-year samples. We also find that cross-sectional variation in rainfall cannot be confidently used to replicate within-population rainfall variability. Based on our findings, we discuss methods for incorporating information on external shocks into evaluations of the returns to policy. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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