scholarly journals Sample-Selection Biases and the Historical Growth Pattern of Children

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric B. Schneider

ABSTRACTBodenhorn et al. (2017) have sparked considerable controversy by arguing that the fall in adult stature observed in military samples in the United States and Britain during industrialization was a figment of selection on unobservables in the samples. While subsequent papers have questioned the extent of the bias (Komlos and A’Hearn 2019; Zimran 2019), there is renewed concern about selection bias in historical anthropometric datasets. Therefore, this article extends Bodenhorn et al.’s discussion of selection bias on unobservables to sources of children’s growth, specifically focusing on biases that could distort the age pattern of growth. Understanding how the growth pattern of children has changed is important because these changes underpinned the secular increase in adult stature and are related to child stunting observed in developing countries today. However, there are significant sources of unobserved selection in historical datasets containing children’s and adolescents’ height and weight. This article highlights, among others, three common sources of bias: (1) positive selection of children into secondary school in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; (2) distorted height by age profiles created by age thresholds for enlistment in the military; and (3) changing institutional ecology that determines to which institutions children are sent. Accounting for these biases adjusts the literature in two ways: evidence of a strong pubertal growth spurt in the nineteenth century is weaker than formerly acknowledged and some long-run analyses of changes in children’s growth are too biased to be informative, especially for Japan.

2017 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Bodenhorn ◽  
Timothy W. Guinnane ◽  
Thomas A. Mroz

Understanding long-term changes in human well-being is central to understanding the consequences of economic development. An extensive anthropometric literature purports to show that heights in the United States declined between the 1830s and the 1890s, which is when the U.S. economy modernized. Most anthropometric research contends that declining heights reflect the negative health consequences of industrialization and urbanization. This interpretation, however, relies on sources subject to selection bias. Our meta-analysis shows that the declining height during industrialization emerges primarily in selected samples. We also develop a parsimonious diagnostic test that reveals, but does not correct for, selection bias in height samples. When applied to four representative height samples, the diagnostic provides compelling evidence of selection.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 433-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
TOMER BROUDE ◽  
MICHAEL MOORE

AbstractThis unappealed Panel Report deals with now standard controversies involving US zeroing practices, but also involves a number of novel problems in administrative reviews of US anti-dumping orders that transcend zeroing issues. Most importantly, this dispute highlights the economic, legal, and statistical importance of sample-selection bias when calculating ‘all others’ rates for exporters that were not queried during dumping investigations. Sampling is particularly problematic in this dispute since US investigators found only zero and de minimis margins in the administrative reviews, a situation in which the relevant provision of the Anti-Dumping Agreement appears to provide no guidance (an apparent ‘lacuna’). The Panel did not directly deal with the key sample-selection issues in the case, and so we provide an alternative legal and statistical analysis. These issues are likely to become more important as the practice of zeroing is phased out in the United States. Indeed, sampling may well be the new zeroing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariell Zimran

After adjusting for sample-selection bias, I find a net decline in average stature of 0.64 inches in the birth cohorts of 1832–1860 in the United States. This result supports the veracity of the Antebellum Puzzle—a deterioration of health during early modern economic growth in the United States. However, this adjustment alters the trend in average stature in the same cohort range, validating concerns over bias in the historical heights literature. The adjustment is based on census-linked military height data and uses a two-step semi-parametric sample-selection model to adjust for selection on observables and unobservables.


2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (6) ◽  
pp. 889-918 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali M. Shahzad ◽  
Mark P. Sharfman

The vast majority of extant empirical research examining the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and financial performance (FP) selects samples of only those firms which are observed engaging in CSP. In this study, the authors assert that firms’ efforts to pursue CSP and subsequently their appearance in social-choice investment advisory (SIA) firms’ ranking databases are non-random. Studying the CSP–FP link using selected samples of only those firms whose social performance is ranked by SIA firms introduces a sample-selection bias which limits generalization of results to a population of all firms, and at worst provides alternate explanations for observed relationships. The authors test these assertions on a large sample of public corporations in the United States over 6 years and find a sample-selection bias. Upon correction of this bias, this study confirms the positive impact of CSP on FP.


2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leandro De Magalhaes

High rerunning rates among incumbents and among the two major parties allow studies of U.S. incumbency advantage to bypass the selection problem of who chooses to rerun. In countries where rerunning is not widespread among individuals or parties, estimation using methods developed for the United States may result in a sample selection bias. In countries with party switching, there may be a disconnect between party and individual estimates. This article proposes a definition of incumbency advantage that is valid for countries that present any of these characteristics and that is valid for cross-country comparison: the effect of incumbency for anindividualpolitician on theunconditionalprobability of winning. I illustrate the issues raised in this article with evidence from Brazilian mayoral elections.


Author(s):  
Aref Emamian

This study examines the impact of monetary and fiscal policies on the stock market in the United States (US), were used. By employing the method of Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) developed by Pesaran et al. (2001). Annual data from the Federal Reserve, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, from 1986 to 2017 pertaining to the American economy, the results show that both policies play a significant role in the stock market. We find a significant positive effect of real Gross Domestic Product and the interest rate on the US stock market in the long run and significant negative relationship effect of Consumer Price Index (CPI) and broad money on the US stock market both in the short run and long run. On the other hand, this study only could support the significant positive impact of tax revenue and significant negative impact of real effective exchange rate on the US stock market in the short run while in the long run are insignificant. Keywords: ARDL, monetary policy, fiscal policy, stock market, United States


Author(s):  
Daniel S. Markey

This book explains how China’s new foreign policies like the vaunted “Belt and Road” Initiative are being shaped by local and regional politics outside China and assesses the political implications of these developments for Eurasia and the United States. It depicts the ways that President Xi Jinping’s China is zealously transforming its national wealth and economic power into tools of global political influence and details these developments in South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Drawing from extensive interviews, travels, and historical research, it describes how perceptions of China vary widely within states like Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Iran. Eurasia’s powerful and privileged groups often expect to profit from their connections to China, while others fear commercial and political losses. Similarly, statesmen across Eurasia are scrambling to harness China’s energy purchases, arms sales, and infrastructure investments as a means to outdo their strategic competitors, like India and Saudi Arabia, while negotiating relations with Russia and America. The book finds that, on balance, China’s deepening involvement will play to the advantage of regional strongmen and exacerbate the political tensions within and among Eurasian states. To make the most of America’s limited influence along China’s western horizon (and elsewhere), it argues that US policymakers should pursue a selective and localized strategy to serve America’s aims in Eurasia and to better compete with China over the long run.


2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 1117-1165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hunt Allcott

Abstract “Site selection bias” can occur when the probability that a program is adopted or evaluated is correlated with its impacts. I test for site selection bias in the context of the Opower energy conservation programs, using 111 randomized control trials involving 8.6 million households across the United States. Predictions based on rich microdata from the first 10 replications substantially overstate efficacy in the next 101 sites. Several mechanisms caused this positive selection. For example, utilities in more environmentalist areas are more likely to adopt the program, and their customers are more responsive to the treatment. Also, because utilities initially target treatment at higher-usage consumer subpopulations, efficacy drops as the program is later expanded. The results illustrate how program evaluations can still give systematically biased out-of-sample predictions, even after many replications.


Nova Economia ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario A. Margarido ◽  
Frederico A. Turolla ◽  
Carlos R. F. Bueno

This paper investigates the price transmission in the world market for soybeans using time series econometrics models. The theoretical model developed by Mundlack and Larson (1992) is based on the Law of the One Price, which assumes price equalization across all local markets in the long run and allows for deviations in the short run. The international market was characterized by three relevant soybean prices: Rotterdam Port, Argentina and the United States. The paper estimates the elasticity of transmission of these prices into soybean prices in Brazil. There were carried causality and cointegration tests in order to identify whether there is significant long-term relationship among these variables. There was also calculated the impulse-response function and forecast error variance decomposition to analyze the transmission of variations in the international prices over Brazilian prices. An exogeneity test was also carried out so as to check whether the variables respond to short term deviations from equilibrium values. Results validated the Law of the One Price in the long run. In line with many studies, this paper showed that Brazil and Argentina can be seen as price takers as long as the speed of their adjustment to shocks is faster than in the United States, the latter being a price maker.


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