The Standard Errors of Persistence

44 Pages Posted: 14 Jun 2019

See all articles by Morgan Kelly

Morgan Kelly

University College Dublin (UCD) - Department of Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: June 3, 2019

Abstract

A large literature on persistence finds that many modern outcomes strongly reflect characteristics of the same places in the distant past. However, alongside unusually high t statistics, these regressions display severe spatial autocorrelation in residuals, and the purpose of this paper is to examine whether these two properties might be connected. We start by running artificial regressions where both variables are spatial noise and find that, even for modest ranges of spatial correlation between points, t statistics become severely inflated leading to significance levels that are in error by several orders of magnitude. We analyse 27 persistence studies in leading journals and find that in most cases if we replace the main explanatory variable with spatial noise the fit of the regression commonly improves; and if we replace the dependent variable with spatial noise, the persistence variable can still explain it at high significance levels. We can predict in advance which persistence results might be the outcome of fitting spatial noise from the degree of spatial autocorrelation in their residuals measured by a standard Moran statistic. Our findings suggest that the results of persistence studies, and of spatial regressions more generally, might be treated with some caution in the absence of reported Moran statistics and noise simulations.

Keywords: Persistence, Deep Origins, Inflated t Statistics, Spatial Noise

JEL Classification: N10, O10, Z10

Suggested Citation

Kelly, Morgan, The Standard Errors of Persistence (June 3, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3398303 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3398303

Morgan Kelly (Contact Author)

University College Dublin (UCD) - Department of Economics ( email )

Belfield
Dublin 4, Dublin 4
Ireland
+353 1 706 8611 (Phone)
+353 1 283 0068 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
2,107
Abstract Views
10,494
Rank
13,647
PlumX Metrics