IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/apandp/v110y2020p55-60.html

In Praise of Confidence Intervals

Author

Listed:
  • David Romer

Abstract

Most empirical papers in economics focus on two aspects of their results: whether the estimates are statistically significantly different from zero and the interpretation of the point estimates. This focus obscures important information about the implications of the results for economically interesting hypotheses about values of the parameters other than zero, and in some cases, about the strength of the evidence against values of zero. This limitation can be overcome by reporting confidence intervals for papers' main estimates and discussing their economic interpretation.

Suggested Citation

  • David Romer, 2020. "In Praise of Confidence Intervals," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 55-60, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:110:y:2020:p:55-60
    DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20201059
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20201059
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20201059.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20201059.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pandp.20201059?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mohd. Imran Khan & Pallavi Wats & Jannet Jacob Farida, 2023. "Gender Differences in Returns to Self-employment in India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 66(1), pages 239-266, March.
    2. Antoine Bozio & Clémentine Garrouste & Elsa Perdrix, 2021. "Impact of later retirement on mortality: Evidence from France," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1178-1199, May.
    3. Kindsgrab, Paul M., 2022. "Do higher income taxes on top earners trickle down? A local labor markets approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    4. Xu, Ke-Li, 2025. "A revisit to bias-adjusted predictive regression," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    5. Bagilet, Vincent & Zabrocki-Hallak, Léo, 2022. "Why Some Acute Health Effects of Air Pollution Could Be Inflated," I4R Discussion Paper Series 11, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    6. Ignacio Martínez, 2021. "Deepening GDP revision analysis: GDP bias breakdown and compositional change," Economic Statistics Series 136, Central Bank of Chile.
    7. Kyle Rozema, 2021. "Does the Bar Exam Protect the Public?," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(4), pages 801-848, December.
    8. Schaub, Sergei & Pfaff, Alexander & Bonev, Petyo, 2025. "Biodiversity and the design of result-based payments: Evidence from Germany," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    9. Elbert Dijkgraaf & Raymond Gradus, 2021. "Are Bottle Banks Sufficiently Effective for Increasing Glass Recycling Rates?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-11, August.
    10. Fidjeland, Andreas & Rege, Mari & Solli, Ingeborg F. & Størksen, Ingunn, 2023. "Reducing the gender gap in early learning: Evidence from a field experiment in Norwegian preschools," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    11. Voxi Heinrich Amavilah & Antonio Rodríguez Andrés, 2024. "Knowledge Economy and the Economic Performance of African Countries: A Seemingly Unrelated and Recursive Approach," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(1), pages 110-143, March.
    12. Schaub, Sergei & Pfaff, Alexander & Bonev, Petyo, 2025. "Biodiversity and the Design of Result-based Payments: Evidence from Germany," Economics Working Paper Series 2502, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    13. Uwe Hassler & Marc‐Oliver Pohle, 2022. "Unlucky Number 13? Manipulating Evidence Subject to Snooping," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 90(2), pages 397-410, August.
    14. Thomas Lebesmuehlbacher & Rhet A. Smith, 2021. "The effect of medical cannabis laws on pharmaceutical marketing to physicians," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(10), pages 2409-2436, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General

    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:apandp:v:110:y:2020:p:55-60. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.