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ERIC Number: ED590328
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Bias Amplification and Bias Unmasking
Middleton, Joel A.; Scott, Marc A.; Diakow, Ronli; Hill, Jennifer L.
Grantee Submission, Political Analysis v24 p307-323 2016
In the analysis of causal effects in non-experimental studies, conditioning on observable covariates is one way to try to reduce unobserved confounder bias. However, a developing literature has shown that conditioning on certain covariates may increase bias, and the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon have not been fully explored. We add to the literature on bias-increasing covariates by first introducing a way to decompose omitted variable bias into three constituent parts: bias due to an unobserved confounder, bias due to "excluding" observed covariates, and bias due to amplification. This leads to two important findings. Although instruments have been the primary focus of the bias amplification literature to date, we identify the fact that the popular approach of adding group fixed effects can lead to bias amplification as well. This is an important finding because many practitioners think that fixed effects are a convenient way to account for any and all group-level confounding and are at worst harmless. The second finding introduces the concept of bias unmasking and shows how it can be even more insidious than bias amplification in some cases. After introducing these new results analytically, we use constructed observational placebo studies to illustrate bias amplification and bias "unmasking" with real data. Finally, we propose a way to add bias decomposition information to graphical displays for sensitivity analysis to help practitioners think through the potential for bias amplification and bias unmasking in actual applications.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Institute of Education Sciences (ED)
Authoring Institution: N/A
IES Funded: Yes
Grant or Contract Numbers: R305D110037; R305B120017
Author Affiliations: N/A