Identification and Empirical Inference

识别与经验推论

• 批准号: 0549544
• 负责人: Charles Manski
• 金额: $ 21.13万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-08-01 至 2010-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0549544&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Identification; Empirical; Inference

The investigator plans to expand his recent research on treatment choice with partial knowledge of treatment response, which has developed out of his earlier work on partial identification. Part of the research willaddress general methodological questions and another part will investigate specific substantive problems ofsocial planning. He also will continue his longstanding program of research on partial identification per se.Intellectual Merit: The investigators research on identification is deliberately conservative. The traditionalway to cope with sampling processes that partially identify population parameters has been to combine theavailable data with assumptions strong enough to yield point identification. Such assumptions often are notwell motivated, and empirical researchers often debate their validity. Conservative analysis enablesresearchers to learn from the available data without imposing untenable assumptions. It enables establishmentof a domain of consensus among researchers who may hold disparate beliefs about what assumptions areappropriate. It also makes plain the limitations of the available data.The investigators analysis of treatment choice is similarly conservative. His research shows howsocial planners and other decision makers can cope coherently with difficult problems of choice underambiguity induced by identification problems and the necessity of statistical inference from sample data,without imposing untenable assumptions. This is achieved using well-established principles of statisticaldecision theory, particularly through application of the minimax-regret criterion.Broader Impacts: Many persistent public policy controversies reflect divergent beliefs about the effects ofgovernment policy on society. Such divergent beliefs are often manifest in dueling policy studies that usedifferent analytical approaches or data sources to reach different policy conclusions. Each study may makesense in its own terms, each combining data with conjectures to draw logically valid conclusions. However,there may be no way to determine which study (if either) makes realistic conjectures and which (if either)draws empirically correct conclusions. The investigators conservative approach to empirical inference andtreatment choice can enable the public to better evaluate the credibility of existing policy studies, enhancethe credibility of future policy research, and improve the quality of policymaking

这位研究人员计划扩大他最近关于治疗选择的研究，利用治疗反应的部分知识，这是从他早期的部分识别工作发展而来的。一部分研究将解决一般的方法论问题，另一部分将调查社会规划的具体实质性问题。他还将继续其长期的部分身份识别研究计划。智力上的优点：调查人员对身份识别的研究故意保守。处理部分识别总体参数的抽样过程的传统方法是将现有数据与足以产生点识别的假设相结合。这样的假设通常不是出于某种动机，经验研究人员经常对它们的有效性进行辩论。保守分析使研究人员能够从现有数据中学习，而不会强加站不住脚的假设。它使研究人员之间建立了一个共识领域，这些研究人员可能对什么假设是合适的持有不同的信念。这也说明了现有数据的局限性。研究人员对治疗选择的分析同样保守。他的研究表明，社会规划者和其他决策者如何在不强加站不住脚的假设的情况下，协调一致地处理由识别问题引起的选择不足的困难问题，以及从样本数据进行统计推断的必要性。这是使用公认的统计决策理论原则实现的，特别是通过应用最小最大后悔标准。广泛的影响：许多持续存在的公共政策争议反映了对政府政策对社会的影响的不同看法。这种不同的信念经常体现在使用不同分析方法或数据来源得出不同政策结论的决斗政策研究中。每一项研究都可能用自己的术语来表达，每一项研究都将数据与猜测结合起来，得出逻辑上有效的结论。然而，可能没有办法确定哪项研究(如果有的话)做出了现实的猜测，哪项研究(如果有的话)得出了经验性的正确结论。研究人员以保守的方法进行经验推断和治疗选择，可以使公众更好地评估现有政策研究的可信度，增强未来政策研究的可信度，并提高政策制定的质量