I got the comment "this study is not worthwhile because you cannot claim clausality from cross-sectional data" in a review. I'll share my response here. Unfortunately the reviewer dropped out of the pool - I am interested in what you think. Thread. polisky cpesky - ThreadSky

About ThreadSky

leoahrens.bsky.social • 357 days ago

I got the comment "this study is not worthwhile because you cannot claim clausality from cross-sectional data" in a review. I'll share my response here. Unfortunately the reviewer dropped out of the pool - I am interested in what you think. Thread.

polisky cpesky

Comments

leoahrens.bsky.social•357 days ago

I generally agree and wholeheartedly emphasize with this critique. The assumptions underpinning a “selection on observables” identification strategy (if you can even call it an id strategy) are very strong,

leoahrens.bsky.social•357 days ago

and it should be expected that the presented estimates deviate from the true causal effect (despite my best attempts to avoid this).

leoahrens.bsky.social•357 days ago

Unfortunately, this point cannot be addressed easily. While it would be easy to dismiss all cross-sectional research like this paper, I will hereafter offer my perspective of why this research approach, and thus the present paper, is worthwhile nonetheless.

leoahrens.bsky.social•357 days ago

First, the decision to use causal language despite the weak id strategy is conscious. I think it is the most honest approach to make explicit causal claims in the theory because the theory is causal.

leoahrens.bsky.social•357 days ago

Many authors simply avoid using causal language and depict their research as „descriptive“ to avoid this line of critique. But, if you carefully read their theories, they remain causal (as most theories on the relationship between concepts are).

leoahrens.bsky.social•357 days ago

Substituting “drives” for “associates with”, etc., strikes me as obfuscation. This is why I decidedly use causal language – it is not because I fully believe in the validity of causal id assumptions underpinning the design.

Posting Rules

Be respectful to others
No spam or self-promotion
Stay on topic
Follow Bluesky's terms of service

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply