Erschienen:
Cambridge, Mass: National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2011
Erschienen in:NBER working paper series ; no. w16773
Umfang:
1 Online-Ressource
Sprache:
Englisch
DOI:
10.3386/w16773
Identifikator:
Reproduktionsnotiz:
Hardcopy version available to institutional subscribers
Entstehung:
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Mode of access: World Wide Web
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Beschreibung:
Following an influential article by Friedberg (1998), Wolfers (2006) explored the sensitivity of Friedberg's results to allowing for dynamics in the response of divorce rates to the adoption of unilateral divorce laws. We in turn explore the sensitivity of Wolfers's results to variations in estimation method and functional form, and we find that the results are extremely fragile. We conclude first that the impact of unilateral divorce laws remains unclear. Second, extending Wolfers's methodological insight about sensitivity of differences-in-differences estimation to allowance for dynamic response, we suggest that identification in differences-in-differences research becomes weaker in the presence of dynamics, especially in the presence of unit-specific time trends