Research Design Quote of the Day
26 April 2011 at 9:33 am Peter G. Klein 3 comments
| Peter Klein |
Following up our earlier discussion of identification versus importance (see also this), here’s the research design quote of the day (via Pete Boettke):
I worry that the drive for “clean” identification as a methodological obsession is driving some junior researchers . . . to a pursuit of the cute instrument (whether natural or experimental). This is leading them down the intellectual cul de sac of precise answers to trivial questions.
You see this kind of lament expressed more and more in various social science fields. Will there be a backlash against the identification obsession?
Entry filed under: - Klein -, Methods/Methodology/Theory of Science.
Organizations and Markets 
1.
srp | 27 April 2011 at 8:38 pm
Personally, I find this new scrupulousness refreshing. At least I have a chance of believing a claimed causal relationship now. Before you could beeline most empirical papers straight to the “might be interesting, if true” file. It’s also favorable to qualitative research of various kinds, since large-sample cuts at many interesting problems can’t identify the relationships we care about.
2.
David Hoopes | 28 April 2011 at 2:26 pm
https://organizationsandmarkets.com/2008/11/26/identification-versus-importance/#comment-86286
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