The Effect of Omitted Variables on the Sign of Regression Coefficients
Matthew A. Masten; Alexandre Poirier · 2026 · American Economic Review
WASTE classifies this as Negative / Null Result Report · AI classification, approximate
The study found no significant effect — useful as a negative control or null benchmark for your own design.
Abstract (excerpt)
We show that, depending on how the impact of omitted variables is measured, it can be substantially easier for omitted variables to flip coefficient signs than to drive them to zero. This behavior occurs with “Oster's delta” (Oster 2019a),…
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Metadata source: OpenAlex · DOI 10.1257/aer.20230242