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Joshua D. Angrist and Jorn-Steffen Pischke. Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2009. 373 pp. $35.00.
It is well known that answering causal questions in the absence of randomized experiments is considerably challenging. So, empirical sociologists should always welcome ideas about how they could use conventional statistical techniques to make causal statements about the issues they study. Mostly Harmless Econometrics makes an important contribution to the understanding of quantitative techniques applied to nonexpertmental settings by placing these techniques in the potential outcome (counterfactual) framework of causality. The authors are not throwing out totally new techniques here but rather offering a remarkably detailed yet practically simplified account of the methods, along with the assumptions necessary for a causal interpretation of the models. The label econometrics in the title should not give the wrong impression about the relevance of this book for sociologists. It is a great applied statistics text from which mainstream sociology scholarship would benefit a great deal. Needless to say, the issue of causality deserves more attention in the quantitative methods texts in sociology.
The opening chapters of the book (chapters 1 and 2) introduce general conceptual issues related to the research process and the potential outcome model of causality. Specifically, in chapter 1, the authors discuss key...