Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161158 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10535
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
The past half‐century has seen economic research become increasingly empirical, while the nature of empirical economic research has also changed. In the 1960s and 1970s, an empirical economist's typical mission was to "explain" economic variables like wages or GDP growth. Applied econometrics has since evolved to prioritize the estimation of specific causal effects and empirical policy analysis over general models of outcome determination. Yet econometric instruction remains mostly abstract, focusing on the search for "true models" and technical concerns associated with classical regression assumptions. Questions of research design and causality still take a back seat in the classroom, in spite of having risen to the top of the modern empirical agenda. This essay traces the divergent development of econometric teaching and empirical practice, arguing for a pedagogical paradigm shift.
Subjects: 
econometrics
teaching
JEL: 
A22
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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