Earlier today I spent some time shitting on this paper without a broader discussion of why I was doing so I shall hold forth on this matter now as I think it is revealing of the absolute state of empirical social science and microeconometrics in particularhttps://twitter.com/RRHDr/status/1295488617125687297 …
-
Show this thread
-
I am not going to sink into a detailed methodological critique because 1) while I hate their antique methods this is unnecessary to make my point, and 2) I am writing for a general audience and want to demonstrate that any idiot can reject papers that uses such methods badly
1 reply 3 retweets 83 likesShow this thread -
heres some text from the methods section along with some of the figures from the paper depending on your background you may find your eyes glazing over before opening it or you may be shouting imprecations at your phone good news if your former! it doesnt fucking matterpic.twitter.com/Kowy5rCDSn
13 replies 0 retweets 61 likesShow this thread -
heres a dumb person version of the Findings meditate on it for a moment before we continuepic.twitter.com/xH2bmj9qnH
2 replies 0 retweets 52 likesShow this thread -
"black babies were three times more likely to die if overseen by a white doctor" really REALLY fucking really
@Fixed_Effects is the corresponding author and he may take this thread as my Correspondence2 replies 3 retweets 82 likesShow this thread -
suppose for a moment that this were actually true what do physical reality do you imagine might cause this outcome? what specific actions can you imagine all white doctors taking that no black doctors take that would *triple* infant mortality independent of everything else?
8 replies 3 retweets 96 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @eigenrobot
note that this is not actually what they found black infant mortality rate is triple the white rate, the effect they see drops that to (afaict) ~double the white rate
2 replies 1 retweet 12 likes -
Replying to @halvorz
somewhat less, I didn't bother to compute the ratios but squinting it looks like its estimated to reduce most of the marginal hazard from being black
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
which rounds to 2/3
so the increase from conditioned on being black is cut by etc etc
I agree with your objection to this sloppiness on my part but also the black/white infant mortality base rate difference is so vast I don't think it makes a practical difference to my point
-
-
Replying to @eigenrobot
the thing is, the base rate difference is, afaict, very real and it still shows up after you control for socioeconomic stuff, health, etc so there is something here that needs to be explained, one way or another
2 replies 0 retweets 13 likes -
Replying to @halvorz
I absolutely agree it's bad and fucked up and I wish people would look for genuinely plausible causes :(
2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.