I Just Ran Four Million Regressions

Universitat Pompeu Fabra Economics WP #201

22 Pages Posted: 26 Sep 1997

See all articles by Xavier Sala-i-Martin

Xavier Sala-i-Martin

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics

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Abstract

In this paper I try to move away from the Extreme Bounds method of identifying "robust" empirical relations in the economic growth literature. Instead of analyzing the extreme bounds of the estimates of the coefficient of a particular variable, I analyze the entire distribution. My claim in this paper is that, if we do this, the picture emerging from the empirical growth literature is not the pessimistic "Nothing is Robust" that we get with the extreme bound analysis. Instead, we find that a substantial number of variables can be found to be strongly related to growth.

JEL Classification: O51, O52, O53

Suggested Citation

Sala-i-Martin, Francesc Xavier, I Just Ran Four Million Regressions. Universitat Pompeu Fabra Economics WP #201, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=31213 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.31213

Francesc Xavier Sala-i-Martin (Contact Author)

Columbia University, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics ( email )

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