Disgusting paper.
Kearney and Levine forthcoming AEJ:Applied The Revenge of the Cookie Monster
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There really needs to be a paper written about multiple comparisons corrections for under powered IVs in applied work. Kearney and Levine's work is, basically, "we ran two million IV regressions and only report on the two significant results we found, but as long as we ignore the 1,999,998 other specifications F>12 and p<0.05."
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Labor economist detected.
where is the paper? could not find it online. The linked AEJ has a different topic and different abstract even though the shock is still exposure to Sesame Street
maybe. but many are responding to OP as if the paper really existed while I could not find it anywhere. So OP is making fun of this research - the merits of which we can certainly debate - but the joke is not perceived as such. Fake news in other words.
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Labor economist detected.
where is the paper? could not find it online. The linked AEJ has a different topic and different abstract even though the shock is still exposure to Sesame Street
maybe. but many are responding to OP as if the paper really existed while I could not find it anywhere. So OP is making fun of this research - the merits of which we can certainly debate - but the joke is not perceived as such. Fake news in other words.
That it’s difficult to tell if it’s a real paper from that abstract is the joke.
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A reasonable person: I cannot believe that Sesame Street causes obesity
The authors: If not Sesame Street, then what is it sir? What else could be causing obesity in our analysis?Perhaps that busy parents are both the target audience for PBS station rollout and provide poor nutrition/exercise opportunities?
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"Our results suggest that Sesame Street exposure accounts for approximately 32 percent of the increase in youth obesity between the 1960s and 1980s."
Are you f**king kidding me? How could any editor/referee read that and not immediately think the whole paper is bulls**t?This quote is as nonsense as the paper itself. It's not in there, just like none of these results are believable.
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For those interested here are the first two paragraphs from the actual paper:
“In recent years, early childhood education, designed to improve subsequent life outcomes for students who participate, has received considerable attention. Programs like Perry Preschool, Head Start, universal prekindergarten, and others have taken center stage. Academic research has generally supported the role that early childhood education can play in improving outcomes for disadvantaged children, as reviewed by Duncan and Magnuson (2013), and that has led to specific proposals from those in the policy community (cf. Cascio and Schanzenbach 2014). Both sides of the political spectrum have promoted its benefits (cf. Council of Economic Advisers 2015 and Stevens 2015).
For all of this attention, it is surprising that perhaps the biggest, yet least costly, early childhood intervention, Sesame Street, has largely been left out of this policy and research conversation. This show initially aired in 1969; its fundamental goal was to reduce the educational deficits experienced by disadvantaged youth based on differences in their preschool environment. It was a smash hit immediately upon its introduction, receiving tremendous critical acclaim and huge ratings. It cost pennies on the dollar relative to other early childhood interventions. A small-scale randomized control trial (RCT) conducted at that time indicates that the show had a substantial and immediate impact on literacy and numeracy test scores at ages three and four, comparable in size to those observed in early Head Start evaluations. But, there is a lack of causal evidence about longer-term effects.”
The trolling can now continue....