[NBER Paper] Economics, History, and Causation

Randall Morck
Bernard Yeung
Working Paper 16678
http://www.nber.org/papers/w16678

ABSTRACT
Economics and history both strive to understand causation: economics using instrumental variables
econometrics and history by weighing the plausibility of alternative narratives. Instrumental variables
can lose value with repeated use because of an econometric tragedy of the commons bias: each successful
use of an instrument potentially creates an additional latent variable bias problem for all other uses
of that instrument – past and future. Economists should therefore consider historians’ approach to
inferring causality from detailed context, the plausibility of alternative narratives, external consistency,
and recognition that free will makes human decisions intrinsically exogenous.

Randall Morck
Faculty of Business
University of Alberta
Edmonton, AB T6G 2R6
CANADA
and NBER
randall.morck@ualberta.ca

Bernard Yeung
National University of Singapore
Mochtar Riady Building
15 Kent Ridge Drive
BIZ 1, Level 6, #6-19
Singapore 119245
bizdean@nus.edu.sg


对于我们用计量方法研究经济变量之间关系，有很好的启示作用。