Research Design and Methods

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Research Design and Methods
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Causal Inference

• What is causal inference
• learning about CAUSAL effects from the data
  observed. (KKV, 8)
• -why treaty/policy A is more effective than
  treaty/policy B (rather than what is treaty A, is
  it effective)? why is country A more sustainable
  than country B? does strong civil society cause
  greater policy sustainability are richer
  countries more sustainable than poorer counts?
• Different from descriptive, philosophical,
  normative, prescriptive approaches
• Causal inference is uncertain
• What evidence would increase confidence in causal
  argument

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Selecting a Research Question

• Question that interests you
• Question that lends itself to causal analysis
• Question that is of policy and/or theoretical
  significance
• Think whether and how you could measure your
  dependent and explanatory/independent variables

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What Is a Variable?

• Variable is a measure of something that we are
  interested in. It varies in certain, measurable
  ways. Something which can have at least two
  values.
• Dependent variable effect
• Independent variable cause
• Not always clear which direction causality runs.
  Sometimes issues of simultaneity or endogeneity.

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Hypotheses

• Probabilistic proposition about how variables
  relate, keeping everything else constant
• Countries that have stronger environmental
  movements are more likely to adopt sustainable
  development policies, ceteris paribus
• Environmental treaties with stronger monitoring
  clauses are more likely to be implemented
• Higher levels of economic development is likely
  to lead to greater concern about the environment
  and more rigorous environmental policy. The
  different sustainable development ranking of a
  country is likely to be positively affected by
  the level of economic development
• Sources of hypotheses
• Theory
• Existing literature, case studies
• Logic

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Methods

• Experimental methods not widely used in social
  science
• Statistical methods
• Comparative (case study) method
• Case study method

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Research Design

• Identify a puzzle, research question
• Identify theories that are relevant to that
  question.
• Often achieved through literature review.
• Have some preliminary hypotheses about how the
  variables of interest could correlate
• Identify observable implications of your
  hypotheses
• Select research and analysis method

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Improving Case Selection

• Increase number of cases or observations
  (disaggregate across regions, across time, etc.)
• Control for as many variable as possible. Focus
  on comparable cases
• Select cases that similar in a lot of aspects,
  but vary along the variable of interest
• Be explicit on why this particular set of cases
  were selected and make a good comparison.
• Focus analysis on key variables, avoid laundry
  list type of explanations

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Increasing Confidence in Causal Argument

• Observable implications
• -generate as many as possible, check against
  evidence
• Counterfactuals
• Could the causal relationship be spurious (both
  the d.v. and i.v are caused by a third variable
  affecting each simultaneously and are therefore
  unrelated)
• Distinguish correlation from causation.

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Use of Data

• Make sure you have a measure of your dependent
  and explanatory variables
• Data and methods should be public, transparent,
  well documented
• Make use or at least show awareness of the full
  range of data sources on a particular topic
• Ask whether the particular measure of the
  variable is driving the results. Show awareness
  of a possible problem
• Be cautious when using Internet sources, do not
  rely only on internet sources.