Talk:Criticisms of econometrics

A quick new page - to try and keep useful stuff that seems unwelcome in the main econometrics article. (Msrasnw (talk) 11:03, 12 April 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Is this a criticism of statistical methods not suited for the study of economic data?. If not, then I think it should be narrowed down. Right now, it seems to push a Point of View (POV). It seems as awkard as a "Criticism of Statistics" page, really.--Forich (talk) 15:44, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article was started as a result of some difficulties on the econometrics page. Some editors wanting to include lots of criticisms of econometrics there and others not wanting or respecting them. This page seems to me useful in that it allows us to include lots of perhaps more obscure stuff without giving it undue weight by a big section on the main econometrics page. What is the point of view you feel is being pushed and is there something that could be added to counter that? (Msrasnw (talk) 10:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Interesting, but it doesn't make an excuse.

"include lots of perhaps more obscure stuff without giving it undue weight by a big section on the main econometrics page"

Knowing that the article is obscure... isn't it just plain wrong? Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, there is really no place for accuracy disrupt. This page to me is more on the criticism of the ease to misuse statistical methods. (Forich just summed that up quite well) --14.198.220.253 (talk) 17:09, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is not completely accurate. For instance, there are also inherent limitations to the use of frequentist statistics when randomization does not hold (as is often true in econometrics). I have included this point in the Austrian School section. Your point that the ease of misuse is an obvious criticism that does not deserve its own article stands, but it is worthwhile to have an article catalogue the specific misuses in economics. 130.126.255.138 (talk) 00:57, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why this is necessary as a page on itself - we should move to add a limitations / criticism section to the main econometric page. Abs145 (talk) 18:19, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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WP:OR

How is this entire article not a glaring example of this? Shouldn't this just be in the "criticisms" section of econometrics, for the notable things in here? It's not clear to me why it was split off in the first place.

WeakTrain (talk) 03:30, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Page move

The title is absurd. It should be something like within econometrics or controversies in to reflect the page content. SPECIFICO talk 19:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MERGE REQUEST

I propose merging Criticisms of econometrics into Econometrics. I think the content in Criticisms can easily be explained in the context of Econometrics, and should be a subsection. Based on comments in this talk page and the lack of notability of the claims made in the article, I believe a merge would not cause any article-size or weighting problems and is most appropriate. While I proposed speedy deletion for this page, I think Merge and delete is less harsh and allows us to ensure the preservation of the content in this page. This page is not notable, as every single science - to some extent - has a criticism or limitation. This page is unneccessary. Abs145 (talk) 20:54, 9 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is already a small section on the main econometrics page and then a reference to this page. Putting all the stuff from this page on the main econometrics page would, I think, imbalance that page and give to much weight to these criticisms. Merging would be likely then to lead to the loss of much of the information on this page. I think there is enough reliable sourcing to indicate it is a sufficiently notable subject. I would not support merging this article. (Msrasnw (talk) 08:21, 10 October 2025 (UTC))[reply]
genuinely, these criticisms are both in high detail - sometimes unrelated to overall discipline - and out of date. With the rise of potential outcomes and increasingly advanced techniques in statistics to achieve causality under required properties, its useless to have a separate page. This maybe was relevant 20 years ago. Abs145 (talk) 01:31, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To quote the article -

Robert Lucas criticised the use of overly simplistic econometric models of the macroeconomy to predict the implications of economic policy, arguing that the structural relationships observed in historical models break down if decision makers adjust their preferences to reflect policy changes. Lucas argued that policy conclusions drawn from contemporary large-scale macroeconometric models were invalid as economic actors would change their expectations of the future and adjust their behaviour accordingly.

Lucas argued a good macroeconometric model should incorporate microfoundations to model the effects of policy change, with equations representing economic representative agents responding to economic changes based on rational expectations of the future; implying their pattern of behaviour might be quite different if economic policy changed.

Modern complex econometric models tend to be designed with the Lucas critique and rational expectations in mind, but Robert Solow argued that some of these modern dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models were no better as the assumptions they made about economic behaviour at the micro level were "generally phony".

this entire section also has its own page (see Lucas critique) and is not generally considered relevant to econometrics. Macroeconomic prediction rests on time series which has different distributions / requirements than causality frameworks in microeconomics. I think the original author of this article does has conflated economic modeling critiques with econometric method critiques. Also note, three of these sentences are descriptive, and two are uncited. It's a lot of non-relevant information (rational expectations, DSGE models and solow's ancient quote). Specifically on these points that seem to be touching on endogeneity, metrics has greatly advanced to address many (not perfectly) of these concerns. No more than any other science and the critiques or limitations of statistics to infer causality. If you really feel this is important, you should have a page on potential outcomes framework and say that is from the historical critique of econometrics. Abs145 (talk) 01:33, 11 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Added a page on the MHE:AEC and linked to the page on Rubin causal model (RCM) from potential outcomes framework. Am not sure (I don't thin that) the contribution of Angrist & Pischke has really solved all the problems that the old criticisms of econometrics have raised. And think they have an academic, historic and current relevance. But I may be in a minority. (Msrasnw (talk) 17:37, 12 October 2025 (UTC))[reply]
the critiques are either concerns with application to macroeconomics - of which there are many limitations, extending beyond causal identification. the other critiques - austrian school + criticism of practice - are very small and have been addressed. firstly the austrian school discusses quasi-experimental and there are a number of methods for generating randomness (field experiments, RED, RCT, natural experiments, etc) that address this and secondly the criticism of practice is from 1959 - outdated and because it is descriptively critical there is no formal way to appease a general disagreement with the practice. The Angrist and Pischke have solved many of the problems, including offering new identification strategies and a number of ways to achieve (or qualify) results within the requirements of causality. I haven't even started on shift share, weak IV, DID/3xDID methods with LATE / ATE estimators that qualify causality. I think you're in the minority without a doubt given the acceleration of the field and the fact that all of the references / critiques you present in this article are dated 50+ years ago. Abs145 (talk) 19:04, 12 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]