Causal Inference in Urban and Regional Economics

Nathaniel Baum-Snow; Fernando Ferreira

doi:10.3386/w20535

Causal Inference in Urban and Regional Economics

Nathaniel Baum-Snow & Fernando Ferreira

Working Paper 20535

DOI 10.3386/w20535

Issue Date October 2014

Recovery of causal relationships in data is an essential part of scholarly inquiry in the social sciences. This chapter discusses strategies that have been successfully used in urban and regional economics for recovering such causal relationships. Essential to any successful empirical inquiry is careful consideration of the sources of variation in the data that identify parameters of interest. Interpretation of such parameters should take into account the potential for their heterogeneity as a function of both observables and unobservables.

This paper has been written as a chapter of the "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics", Volume 5, Duranton, Henderson, and Strange editors, Elsevier. We thank Gilles Duranton, Thomas Holmes, Vernon Henderson, and Will Strange for helpful comments and suggestions. Adrian Rubli, Pengpeng Xiao, and Chen Zheng provided excellent research assistance. We also thank the Research Sponsors Program of the Zell/Lurie Real Estate Center at Wharton for financial support. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
MARC RIS BibTeΧ

Causal Inference in Urban and Regional Economics

Related

Topics

Programs

Working Groups

More from NBER