TY  - JOUR
AU  - Angrist,Joshua
AU  - Pischke,Jörn-Steffen
TI  - The Credibility Revolution in Empirical Economics: How Better Research Design is Taking the Con out of Econometrics
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15794
PY  - 2010
Y2  - March 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15794
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15794.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Joshua Angrist
Department of Economics
MIT, E52-353
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA  02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-8909
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: angrist@mit.edu

Jorn-Steffen Pischke
CEP
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: 44-20-7955-6509
Fax: 44-20-7955-7595
E-Mail: s.pischke@lse.ac.uk
AB  - This essay reviews progress in empirical economics since Leamer’s (1983) critique.  Leamer highlighted the benefits of sensitivity analysis, a procedure in which researchers show how their results change with changes in specification or functional form.  Sensitivity analysis has had a salutary but not a revolutionary effect on econometric practice.  As we see it, the credibility revolution in empirical work can be traced to the rise of a design-based approach that emphasizes the identification of causal effects.  Design-based studies typically feature either real or natural experiments and are distinguished by their prima facie credibility and by the attention investigators devote to making the case for a causal interpretation of the findings their designs generate.  Design-based studies are most often found in the microeconomic fields of Development, Education, Environment, Labor, Health, and Public Finance, but are still rare in Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics.  We explain why IO and Macro would do well to embrace a design-based approach.  Finally, we respond to the charge that the design-based revolution has overreached.
ER  -