IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cambje/v26y2002i6p753-772.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On categorical variables and non-parametric statistical inference in the pursuit of causal explanations

Author

Listed:
  • John H. Finch
  • Robert McMaster

Abstract

This paper proposes a pragmatic alliance between critical realism and non-parametric statistical techniques in pursuit of causal explanations of economic phenomena by retroductive means. The alliance depends on clarifying the interpretive requirements for forming categories within nominal or classificatory scales or as ordinal or ranking scales. It also depends on establishing the scope of demiregularities, as something to be explained and as something that allows a rough and ready extension of experimental conditions. The roughness and readiness of demiregularities is matched by the assumptions and conditions of non-parametric analysis. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • John H. Finch & Robert McMaster, 2002. "On categorical variables and non-parametric statistical inference in the pursuit of causal explanations," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 26(6), pages 753-772, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:26:y:2002:i:6:p:753-772
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Andy Pike & Andrew Cumbers & Stuart Dawley & Danny MacKinnon & Robert McMaster, 2015. "Doing evolution in economic geography," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1532, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Sep 2015.
    2. Therese Jefferson & Siobhan Austen & Rhonda Sharp & Rachel Ong & Gill Lewin & Valerie Adams, 2014. "Mixed-methods research: What’s in it for economists?," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 25(2), pages 290-305, June.
    3. Lee, Frederic, 2011. "The making of heterodox microeconomics," MPRA Paper 30907, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Andrew Mearman, 2006. "Critical realism in economics and open-systems ontology: A critique," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(1), pages 47-75.

    More about this item

    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:oup:cambje:v:26:y:2002:i:6:p:753-772. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/cje .

    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.