andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-1665 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Kyle Peyton writes: I’m passing you this recent news article by Ewen Callaway in the hope that you will make a comment about the methodology on your blog. It’s generated some back and forth between the economics and science communities. I [Peyton] am very sceptical of the reductive approach taken by the economics profession generally, and the normative implications this kind of research generates. For example, p. 7 of the working paper states: “…[according to our model] decreasing the diversity of the most diverse country in the sample (Ethopia) by 1 percentage point would raise its income per capita by 21 percent”. Understandably, this piece is couched in assumptions that would take hours to pick apart, but their discussion of the approach belies the uncertainty involved. The main response by the authors in defense is that genetic diversity is a ‘proxy variable’. This is a common assertion, but I find it really infuriating. I happen to drink coffee most days, which correla
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 7 of the working paper states: “…[according to our model] decreasing the diversity of the most diverse country in the sample (Ethopia) by 1 percentage point would raise its income per capita by 21 percent”. [sent-5, score-1.444]
2 The main response by the authors in defense is that genetic diversity is a ‘proxy variable’. [sent-7, score-0.618]
3 Therefore, I can put it in a regression and predict the relationship between my happiness and the amount of times I go to the bathroom. [sent-11, score-0.182]
4 This gives the pair of economists the scientific and even moral high ground, in that they can feel that, unlike their antagonists, they are the true scholars, the ones pursuing truth wherever it leads them, letting the chips fall where they may. [sent-21, score-0.159]
5 ” in English (or Latin, whatever), and strictly speaking the above bit is not a claim at all, it’s just an interpretation of their regression coefficients. [sent-26, score-0.146]
6 What would it mean to increase Bolivia’s diversity by 1 percentage point? [sent-29, score-0.552]
7 Probably someone rich enough to increase the country’s income per capita. [sent-32, score-0.318]
8 They’d increase the country’s ethnic diversity too, but I don’t see them increasing its per-capita income by 41 percent. [sent-35, score-0.663]
9 If you can’t do that, you’d need to throw in lots of people with less genetic diversity. [sent-42, score-0.143]
10 Not the poorest ones, certainly: why would they want to go to a poor country in the first place? [sent-45, score-0.281]
11 Maybe some middle-income or rich ones (if the country could be safe enough, or if there’s a sense there’s money to be made). [sent-46, score-0.203]
12 The hump-shaped e§ect of genetic diversity remains highly signiÖcant and the optimal diversity estimate remains virtually intact if the regression sample is restricted to (i) non-OECD economies (i. [sent-50, score-1.291]
13 , economies that were less attractive to migrants), (ii) non-Neo-European countries (i. [sent-52, score-0.288]
14 , Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), (iii) non-Latin American countries, (iv) non-Sub-Saharan African countries, and, perhaps most importantly, (v) countries whose indigenous population is larger than 97 percent of the entire population (i. [sent-56, score-0.276]
15 I’m not saying their central point is wrong—it’s basically a twist on the classic “why are some countries so poor” question—but the extrapolations that they give themselves reveal the problems with their interpretation of the regression model. [sent-60, score-0.286]
16 The way you make Bolivia more diverse is by adding more white people. [sent-61, score-0.26]
17 I think the way to go is to start with the big pattern they noticed: the most genetically diverse countries (according to their measure) are in east Africa, and they’re poor. [sent-65, score-0.653]
18 The least genetically diverse countries are remote undeveloped places like Bolivia and are pretty poor. [sent-66, score-0.611]
19 Industrialized countries are not so remote (thus they have some diversity) but they’re not filled with east Africans (thus they’re not extremely genetically diverse). [sent-67, score-0.474]
20 They make a very strong claim and keep banging on it, defending their claim with a bunch of analyses to demonstrate its robustness. [sent-73, score-0.221]
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