TY  - JOUR
AU  - Glaeser,Edward L.
TI  - Researcher Incentives and Empirical Methods
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Technical Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 329
PY  - 2006
Y2  - October 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/t0329
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/t0329.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu
AB  - Economists are quick to assume opportunistic behavior in almost every walk of life other than our own.  Our empirical methods are based on assumptions of human behavior that would not pass muster in any of our models.  The solution to this problem is not to expect a mass renunciation of data mining, selective data cleaning or opportunistic methodology selection, but rather to follow Leamer's lead in designing and using techniques that anticipate the behavior of optimizing researchers.  In this essay, I make ten points about a more economic approach to empirical methods and suggest paths for methodological progress.
ER  -