Growth diagnostics: the dangers of agnosticism

Why does income grow faster in some countries than others? A common empirical approach in recent growth analysis has been to adopt an 'agnostic' approach and let the data do the talking (i.e. weak priors). But a new paper by Antonio Ciccone from Barcelona's ICREA-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, and ECB economist Marek Jarocinski, question this approach. In their new ECB working paper no. 852, Determinants of economic growth: will data tell? (PDF), they show that small differences in the comparative income data can have a substantial effect on the outcomes:

As many potential explanatory variables have been suggested, these agnostic empirical approaches inevitably need to start out with a long list of variables. We show that, as a result, the growth determinants emerging from these approaches turn out to be sensitive to seemingly minor variations in international income estimates across datasets. This is because strong conclusions are drawn from small differences in the R2 of different growth regressions. Small changes in the relative fit of different models—due to Penn World Table income data revisions or methodological differences between the PWT and the World Bank income data for example—can therefore lead to substantial changes regarding growth determinants.

Their analysis clearly shows that agnostic growth regressions can be sensitive even to small data revisions. They suggest that "the available income data may be too imperfect for agnostic empirical analysis". So what to do? Stronger (and fewer) priors:

At the same time, we find that the sensitivity of growth determinants to income differences across data revisions and datasets falls considerably when priors regarding potential growth determinants become stronger. That is, the data appears good enough to differentiate among a limited number of hypotheses. Empirical models of the typical size in the literature, for example, tend to point to the same growth determinants using different versions of the PWT or the World Bank income data.

Researchers who want to continue giving equal a priori weight to all potential growth determinants in the literature, should consider shrinkage priors, explicitly incorporating priors about measurement error in the income data, or implementing Zellner’s (2002) adjustment for data quality.

Comments

[ugg uk]

A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note.

[buy moncler]

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.

[GHD]

successHerve Leger dressesexpect
Herve Leger clothingearly

make sureHerve Leger clothing
desired piecesDiscount herve leger in minutes
eleganceChristian Louboutin SandalsThe creative vision
let me downChristian Louboutin Sandals Sale

leatherPrada SunglassesTalented artist
Oakley Sunglassesluxury
appealArmani Sunglassesthe most exciting

a href="http://www.designersunglasses-glasses.com/bvlgari-sunglasses-c-46.html">Bvlgari suglasses salethe detail
reallyBvlgari suglassesSpain
Cheap Bvlgari suglasses on slae

Martini Sunglassesed hardy kid tshirtsthe players
Ed Hardy Men Beach Pants
ed hardy hoodiesdisplay

a href="http://www.cheap-ed-hardy-clothing.com/ed-hardy-sunglasses-c-14.html">Cheap ed hardy sunglassesOne day
hardy clothingCheap ed hardy WomenApparently

ShopCheap Herve Leger Dressesthis summer
Discount Herve Leger Dressesmany times
my listHerve Leger Skirtall time

this reasonCheap Herve Leger Dress 2010well-known design
classifiedCheap Herve Leger Saleforever

a fewWomen Christian Audigier BagsApple floods

annually Women Christian Audigier Underwear
Women Christian Audigier Walletslogical

a piece of Christian Audigier Women Purses Discountthe pie
Christian Audigier Women Caps Discountfashion
Christian Audigier Women Hoodies Discountdaily

humanMBT Sandalswhy
questions MBT Sports Shoespanda
spend all day MBT Casual On Saleshopping

First offMBT SapatuGreen
United StatesWomen MBT Sapatu Sandalsconsumers
MBT Sapatu Men Sandals On Saleindustry

responsiblelouboutin pumps saleplanet
the environmentlouboutin shoes salebut also
pictureslouboutin boots saleshare

charmsMen Louboutin Shoesactivelytwo eras mightChristian Louboutin men sneakersextremelyin commonChristian loubout shoes discount salecollection

talking aboutDiscount Ghd Straightenerspecifically
Ghd Hair Straighteners Cheaplook like springGhd Hair Straighteners Cheapsport hardingBlue Serenity GHD IV Stylerstudentthe richDark GHD IV StylerteacherGHD Benefit StylershootsadnessHerve Leger Dress Discountdiscovery themeDiscount Herve Leger Dressstyler

fashionableDiscount Herve leger Bandage Dressincredible

sponserHerve Leger Clothing Cheapsurvival
encourageHerve Leger Clothing On Salelight
tell me truthDiscount Herve Leger Skirtdarling
a href="http://www.ugg-uk-australia.com/">ugg ukmistake
kateugg australiasomewhere
lineugg boots on salecan
theyuggs boots ukkinds
all bestuggs australiatheme

memoryugg 5359throw up
give meugg 1873its up to you
skyugg 5885closely

[kişisel gelişim]

Thanks for the given informations. These are really good and very useful informations. Everybody has to see that. So I will share this link with all my friends. Thanks

[Lazer epilasyon Kayseri]

Thank you so much! I checked out the other two tutorials you’ve put up linked from digg and found them helpful, but this sealed it for me. Your site is now in my daily routine of places to check! Keep up the good work.
Kadın Hastalıkları
Ataşehir Lazer Epilasyon

[horkes]

Remove it from the loud sound described as among the People of the individual during sleep, especially in the medical sense, the most common cause of snoring soft palate observed in adults, little more than normal growth of the tongue, the muscles sag and lose tension and blockage of the airway during sleep titresmesidir little of the language.

[Shyloh Cheap Boating Equiptment]

Thank you for sharing this information! Now that I can check this topic off my days to-do list now all I need to find is cheap boating equipment and I can relax! Thank you again for making my day a little easier.

[sac çikarici]

Internet users in more than 2 billion people worldwide, 778 million the number of computers registered to the internet, the web of 313 million, a total of 205 million units in the name of that reported.

To the extent that there is hundreds of millions of blogs and video Ahmed, said that Turkey has been estimated that there's at around 30 million.

Ahmed, the computer recorded the number of Internet in Turkey has been reported around 4 million, 250 thousand under .. en told that the domain name.

[diş beyazlatma kalemi]

Save the essence of life in the treatment of skin allantoinle Snail! This essence creates a bad appearance and have no choice tahribatlarının skin no longer be removed even if the so-called cracks.

Nature of this herbal solution effectively and safely as possible to get rid of sivilcelerinizden! Skin care products on behalf of the choice deliberately choose to adhere and creams containing natural formulas that you keep the fault

[extra jel]

As millions of people who want to lose weight, but youDid he can not succeed in a kind of worry about your weight yanıyorsunuz more? You might think, and this process will be much easier to lose weight in a healthy way to get over ... Now a much more difficult as it used to have a nice view, but you have to do is that you want to attenuation.

[herbalife]

herbalife ürünleri
Its just the same as all the stuff I've looked into about the accuracy of economic forecasting. In models such as Cambridge Econometrics/ IER At least 50% of the forecasting error is usually due to errors in source data.

[office 2010]

good thank like your "explosive" analogy, I use it in my business as well. Thanks for the great content.

[celltone]

aşam için yeşil alanlar çok önemli. Bugün şehirlerin gelişmişlik göstergesi yeşil alan olmaktan çıktı, binalar şehirleri sarmaya devam ediyor."

acnema

[Tüp Bebek]

Its just the same as all the stuff I've looked into about the accuracy of economic forecasting. In models such as Cambridge Econometrics/ IER At least 50% of the forecasting error is usually due to errors in source data.

[Tüp Bebek]

thank you very much very nice article
00