Managing Selection in the Analysis of Economic Outcomes
Workshop Podcast
Economic analysis of outcomes often must account for the selection of economic agents into groups, partnerships, networks, and institutions before the outcome happens. Yet selection is rarely modelled explicitly and rigorously by economists, and may differ across samples and subpopulations of people. How do economists manage this problem, given that they wish to derive generalizable analytical results about the nature of the outcome? Are the tools economists use to manage selection sufficiently developed and credible? How do these tools differ across different branches of economics in network theory, the analysis of field data, and economic experiments and can scholars working in these fields learn from each other about ways they might handle selection?
A two-day workshop was held at UniSA on
28-29 July 2008 to promote intra-disciplinary collaboration between economic
empiricists, theorists, and experimentalists around these questions. The
workshop was designed for scholars working in different subfields of
microeconomics and micro-econometrics who are interested in advancing their
knowledge of how selection is variously controlled, modelled, or exploited
in the analysis of microeconomic outcomes. The workshop consisted of both of
traditional paper presentations and mini-workshops, each led by a field
specialist, about how selection is approached in different economic
subfields.
This workshop was organised by Dr Gigi Foster (UniSA) and Dr
Virginie Masson (University of Adelaide). Funding has been generously
provided by the Economic Design Network, UniSA's School of
Commerce, and the University of Adelaides School of Economics.
Program
Day 1, Monday 28 July 2008 |
|
| 8:30am | Tea/Coffee |
| 9:00am | Welcome and introductions |
| 9:30am |
Mini-workshop 1: To model and/or to correct? The similarities and differences between contemporary structural approaches to selection and reduced-form selection correction methods (facilitators: Michael Keane and Frank Vella) |
| 11:30am | Tea/Coffee |
| 11:45am |
Paper session: "What would the Average Public Sector Employee be Paid in the Private Sector?" (Peter Siminski, University of Wollongong) |
| 12:45pm | Lunch |
| 2:00pm |
Mini-workshop 2: Social effects estimation and endogeneity of the peer group (facilitator: Bruce Weinberg) |
| 3:15pm | Tea/Coffee |
| 3:30pm |
Paper session: "A Quasi-Experiment in Selection and Randomization using Undergraduate Peer Groups" (Gigi Foster, University of South Australia) |
| 4:30pm |
Paper session: "Child Labour and Schooling Responses to Access to Microcredit in Rural Bangladesh" (Asad Islam, Monash University) |
| 7:00pm | Conference Dinner |
Day 2, Tuesday 29 July 2008 |
|
| 9:00am | Tea/Coffee |
| 9:30am |
Mini-workshop 3: Network theory and interaction effects (facilitator: Simon Angus) |
| 10:45am | Tea/Coffee |
| 11:00am |
Paper session: "Complementarities, Group Formation, and Preferences for Similarity" (Marcin Peski, University of Texas, Austin) |
| 12:00pm |
Paper session: "Alternative Representations of Acyclic Instances of the Roommates Problem" (Jose Rodrigues-Neto, Australian National University) |
| 1:00pm | Lunch |
| 2:15pm |
Mini-workshop 4: Experimental economics (facilitator: Glenn Harrison) |
| 3:30pm |
Paper session: "To participate or not? Addressing selection bias in randomised controlled clinical trials and the consequences for economic analysis" (Julie Ratcliffe, University of South Australia, and Brita Pekarsky, University of Adelaide) |
| 4:30pm | Closing |
Recommended Reading
Racial Sorting and Neighborhood Quality (Bayer and McMillan)
Sorting in Experiments with Application to Social Preferences (Lazear, Malmendier, and Weber)
Social Interactions with Endogenous Associations (Weinberg)
Harrison, Glenn W., and List, John A., "Field Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, 42(4), December 2004, 1013-1059.
Botelho, Anabela; Harrison, Glenn W.; Pinto, Lgia M. Costa, and Rutstrm, Elisabet E., "Social Norms and Social Choice," Working Paper 05-23, Department of Economics, College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida, 2005;
Harrison, Glenn W.; Lau, Morten Igel, and Rutstrm, E. Elisabet, "Risk Attitudes, Randomization to Treatment, and Self-Selection Into Experiments," Working Paper 05-01, Department of Economics, College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida, 2005; Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming;
