Im Oktober 2000 verlieh die Königlich Schwedische Akademie der Wissenschaften den insgesamt mit ca. 2 Millionen Euro dotierten Nobelpreis für Wirtschaftswissenschaften zu gleichen Teilen an die beiden US-Amerikaner James J. Heckman und Daniel L. McFadden. Das Papier erklärt die Bedeutung ihrer wissenschaftlichen Leistungen im Bereich der Mikroökonometrie. Download Volltext: (pdf, 22 kb)
In diesem Aufsatz werden Methoden zur Identifikation kausaler Effekte von staatlichen Eingriffen am Beispiel von Fortbildungs- und Umschulungsprogrammen vorgestellt und deren Implikationen und Voraussetzungen diskutiert. Desweiteren werden Eigenschaften jeweils in Frage kommender Schätzmethoden erörtert. Dadurch soll dieser Aufsatz eine Hilfestellung bei der Auswahl einer für das jeweilige Problem geeignete Evaluationsmethode geben. Frühere Version: Lechner, M. (1997), Mikroökonometrische Evaluationsstudien: Anmerkungen zu Theorie und Praxis, Beiträge zur angewandten Wirtschaftsforschung, Universität Mannheim, 555-97. Download Volltext: (pdf, 107 kb)
Lechner and Miquel (2001) approached the causal analysis of sequences of interventions from a potential outcome perspective based on selection on observable type of assumptions (sequential conditional independence assumptions). Lechner (2004) proposed matching estimators for this framework. However, many practical issues that might have substantial consequences for interpretation of the results have not been thoroughly investigated so far. This paper discusses some of these practical issues. The discussion is related to estimates
based on an artificial data set for which the true values of the parameters are known and that shares many features of data that could be used for an empirical dynamic matching analysis.
This microeconometric study analyzes the effects of individual leisure sports participation on long-term labour market variables, on socio-demographic as well as on health and subjective well-being indicators for West Germany based on individual data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study (GSOEP) 1984 to 2006. Econometric problems due to individuals choosing their own level of sports activities are tackled by combining informative data and flexible semiparametric estimation methods with a specific way to use the panel dimension of the data. The paper shows that sports activities have sizeable positive long-term labour market effects in terms of earnings and wages, as well as positive effects on health and subjective well-being.
(doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2009.05.003)
* Michael Lechner INTRODUCTION 1. Recently, there is a renewed interest in the correlates and determinants of sports activities1 as well as the effects of sports activities on labour market outcomes.2 However, the evidence on both dimensions is rather limited for Switzerland. Although there is some descriptive evidence (see Lamprecht et al., 2008), econometric analyses are missing. With this chapter I fill this gap in the literature by investigating the correlates of individual sports participation in Switzerland, as well as the impact of doing sports on health and labour market outcomes. The analysis is based on a very informative individual panel data-set, namely, the Swiss Household Panel (SHP), which currently covers the years 1999 to 2008. The panel structure allows the analysis of dynamic patterns of phenomena under investigation. This advantage comes at a cost, in that the size of samples is fairly moderate. The econometric analysis of the correlates and determinants of sports participation is based on parametric binary choice models. The complex estimation task of obtaining results for the effects of sports activities on labour market, as well as health and general well-being outcomes, is performed by using robust semi-parametric matching methods that closely follow the approach suggested by Lechner (2009). With respect to participation in sports, it turns out that better subjective health and health investments as well as socio-economic status are positively associated with positive activity status. Furthermore, the probability of sports participation in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is considerably higher than in the rest of...
This special issue of Annales d Economie et de Statistique contains a selection of original papers that were presented at the ADRESI meeting on "Econometric Evaluation of Public Policies: Methods and Applications".
Not available in German. The assumption that the assignment to treatments is ignorable conditional on attributes plays an important role in the applied statistic and econometric evaluation literature. Another term for it is conditional independence assumption. This paper discusses identification when there are more than two types of mutually exclusive treatments. It turns out that similar to the case of only two types of treatments extensions of the classical balancing score properties involving now multivariate balancing scores can be used for identification. Therefore, a similar reduction of dimension is achieved and the approach retains its basic simplicity. The paper also outlines a matching estimator potentially suitable in that framework. frühere Version: Lechner, Michael (1999), Identification and Estimation of Causal Effects of Multiple Treatments under the Conditional Independence Assumption, discussion paper 9908, Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung, Universität St. Gallen. paper is not downloadable at the moment (under revision)
