Reliable Panel Regression: A Default Workflow for Slow-Moving, Mismeasured Variables

Andrew S. Rosenberg

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Political scientists often interpret coefficient shrinkage under fixed effects as evidence that pooled associations are confounded. This paper shows why that inference is unreliable for slow-moving, mismeasured regressors. Fixed effects can remove much of the signal and identify coefficients from within-unit variation that is disproportionately measurement error, attenuating estimates toward zero. A lone fixed effects coefficient may therefore be unable to distinguish confounding from measurement error. I show that the attenuation depends on a regressor's empirical intraclass correlation and measurement reliability. I then propose a default workflow for panel regression. Researchers estimate reliability when possible, report pooled and fixed effects estimates with corrected within reliability, use partial identification bounds when the estimates share a sign, and report fixed effects as a within-unit estimate when they do not. For variables with no reliability estimate, I introduce an autocorrelation frontier that bounds the attenuation factor directly. I conclude by applying this workflow to several published results to show that the data often cannot distinguish attenuation from confounding, and the workflow makes clear which case the researcher faces.

Date: 2026-06
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.14009 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2606.14009

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().