Publish or Perish

For fans (or enemies) of p-values

Time for t? Do we misinterpret statistical significance?

The use & mis-use of significance tests is discussed occasionally, perhaps not enough, in the economics literature. McCloskey & Ziliak are well known critics of the use of t statistics in economics & elsewhere. Given that the humble t statistic is a Dublin invention (Gosset a.k.a. "Student" was chief brewer at Guinness' Brewery) there is also a certain local interest in this too.
This recent paper by Siegfried, which is strongly critical of how significance tests are used, is well worth a read in this regard.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/57091/title/Odds_are,_its_wrong

Be Careful with Your Control Variables!

I'm doing a session in the Geary Journal Club on being ''Careful with Your Control Variables'', at 3pm on Friday 9th October. The main paper is "The Phantom Menace", but there are two more that can be read for the session, as indicated below.

1. Kevin Clarke (Rochester): "The Phantom Menace: Omitted Variable Bias in Econometric Research", Conflict Management and Peace Science, 22:341–352, 2005

2. Chris Achen (Princeton): "Let’s Put Garbage-Can Regressions and Garbage-Can Probits Where They Belong", Conflict Management and Peace Science, 22:327–339, 2005

3. Oneal and Russett (Yale): "Rule of Three, Let It Be? When More Really Is Better", Conflict Management and Peace Science, 22:293–310, 2005