IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmac/v5y2013i2p152-86.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Blunt Instruments: Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Identifying the Causes of Economic Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Samuel Bazzi
  • Michael A. Clemens

Abstract

Concern has intensified in recent years that many instrumental variables used in widely-cited growth regressions may be invalid, weak, or both. Attempts to remedy this general problem remain inadequate. We show how a range of published studies can offer more evidence that their results are not spurious. Key steps include: grounding growth regressions in more generalized theoretical models, deployment of new methods for estimating sensitivity to violations of exclusion restrictions, opening the "black box" of GMM with supportive evidence of instrument strength, and utilization of weak-instrument robust tests and estimators. (JEL C52, E23, F35, O41, O47)

Suggested Citation

  • Samuel Bazzi & Michael A. Clemens, 2013. "Blunt Instruments: Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Identifying the Causes of Economic Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 152-186, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:5:y:2013:i:2:p:152-86
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mac.5.2.152
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mac.5.2.152
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/data/2011-0108_data.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/app/2011-0108_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/ds/0502/2011-0108_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sarah Voitchovsky, 2005. "Does the Profile of Income Inequality Matter for Economic Growth?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 273-296, September.
    2. Motohiro Yogo, 2004. "Estimating the Elasticity of Intertemporal Substitution When Instruments Are Weak," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 797-810, August.
    3. William Hauk & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "A Monte Carlo study of growth regressions," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 103-147, June.
    4. David Roodman, 2009. "How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LLC, vol. 9(1), pages 86-136, March.
    5. Ross Levine & Norman Loayza & Thorsten Beck, 2002. "Financial Intermediation and Growth: Causality and Causes," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Leonardo Hernández & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Se (ed.),Banking, Financial Integration, and International Crises, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 2, pages 031-084, Central Bank of Chile.
    6. Ricardo Hausmann & Jason Hwang & Dani Rodrik, 2007. "What you export matters," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, March.
    7. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    8. Hansen, Henrik & Tarp, Finn, 2001. "Aid and growth regressions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 547-570, April.
    9. Marcelo J. Moreira, 2003. "A Conditional Likelihood Ratio Test for Structural Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(4), pages 1027-1048, July.
    10. Raghuram G. Rajan & Arvind Subramanian, 2008. "Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really Show?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 643-665, November.
    11. Frank Kleibergen, 2002. "Pivotal Statistics for Testing Structural Parameters in Instrumental Variables Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(5), pages 1781-1803, September.
    12. Hahn, Jinyong & Ham, John C. & Moon, Hyungsik Roger, 2011. "The Hausman test and weak instruments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 160(2), pages 289-299, February.
    13. Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Henrik Hansen & Finn Tarp, 2004. "On The Empirics of Foreign Aid and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(496), pages 191-216, June.
    14. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    15. David N. DeJong & Marla Ripoll, 2006. "Tariffs and Growth: An Empirical Exploration of Contingent Relationships," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 625-640, November.
    16. Windmeijer, Frank, 2005. "A finite sample correction for the variance of linear efficient two-step GMM estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 25-51, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Coviello, Decio & Islam, Roumeen, 2006. "Does aid help improve economic institutions ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3990, The World Bank.
    2. Alessandra Pelloni & Thanasis Stengos & Ilaria Tedesco, 2018. "Aid to agriculture, trade and take-off," Working Paper series 18-04, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    3. Deseau, Arnaud & Levai, Adam & Schmiegelow, Michèle, 2025. "Access to justice and economic development: Evidence from an international panel dataset," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    4. Juergen Bitzer & Erkan Goeren, 2018. "Foreign Aid and Subnational Development: A Grid Cell Analysis," Working Papers V-407-18, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2018.
    5. Pablo Selaya & Rainer Thiele, 2010. "Aid and Sectoral Growth: Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(10), pages 1749-1766.
    6. Chang, Roberto & Kaltani, Linda & Loayza, Norman V., 2009. "Openness can be good for growth: The role of policy complementarities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 33-49, September.
    7. Fabio Mariani & Marion Mercier & Luca Pensieroso, 2023. "Left-handedness and economic development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 79-123, March.
    8. Roland Hodler & David S. Knight, 2012. "Ethnic Fractionalisation and Aid Effectiveness," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(1), pages 65-93, January.
    9. Minoiu, Camelia & Reddy, Sanjay G., 2010. "Development aid and economic growth: A positive long-run relation," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 27-39, February.
    10. Brice Kamguia & Joseph Keneck‐Massil & Henri Njangang & Sosson Tadadjeu, 2024. "Sophistication gap between countries: The effect of research and development expenditure," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(3), pages 739-778, July.
    11. Gopalan, Sasidaran & Rajan, Ramkishen S., 2016. "Has Foreign Aid Been Effective in the Water Supply and Sanitation Sector? Evidence from Panel Data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 84-104.
    12. Musayev, Vusal, 2013. "Military Spending and Growth: An Empirical Exploration of Contingent Relationships," MPRA Paper 59783, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Kamguia, Brice & Tadadjeu, Sosson & Miamo, Clovis & Njangang, Henri, 2022. "Does foreign aid impede economic complexity in developing countries?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 71-88.
    14. Selaya, Pablo & Sunesen, Eva Rytter, 2012. "Does Foreign Aid Increase Foreign Direct Investment?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(11), pages 2155-2176.
    15. Ferreira, I.A.R. & Simoes, M.C.N., 2013. "Aid And Growth: A Comparative Study Between Sub-Saharan Africa And Asia," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 13(1), pages 113-132.
    16. Kimura, Hidemi & Mori, Yuko & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2012. "Aid Proliferation and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-10.
    17. Qu, Guangjun & Sylwester, Kevin & Wang, Feng, 2016. "Anticorruption and Growth: Evidence from China," MPRA Paper 72190, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Belke, Ansgar & Haskamp, Ulrich & Setzer, Ralph, 2016. "Regional bank efficiency and its effect on regional growth in “normal” and “bad” times," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 413-426.
    19. Claire Giordano, 2023. "Revisiting the real exchange rate misalignment‐economic growth nexus via the across‐sector misallocation channel," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1329-1384, September.
    20. Carter, Patrick, 2017. "Aid econometrics: Lessons from a stochastic growth model," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 216-232.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • E23 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Production
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Blunt Instruments: Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Identifying the Causes of Economic Growth (AEJ:MA 2013) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:5:y:2013:i:2:p:152-86. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.