{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,2]],"date-time":"2026-10-02T14:40:12Z","timestamp":1790952012808,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"The Econometric Society","issue":"6","funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000001","name":"National Science Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000001","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["ECTA"],"abstract":"<jats:p>We propose a way to formalize the relationship between descriptive analysis and structural estimation. A researcher reports an estimate<jats:italic>\u0109<\/jats:italic>of a structural quantity of interest<jats:italic>c<\/jats:italic>that is exactly or asymptotically unbiased under some base model. The researcher also reports descriptive statistics<a:math xmlns:a=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\" display=\"inline\"><a:mover accent=\"true\"><a:mi>\u03b3<\/a:mi><a:mo>\u02c6<\/a:mo><\/a:mover><\/a:math>that estimate features<jats:italic>\u03b3<\/jats:italic>of the distribution of the data that are related to<jats:italic>c<\/jats:italic>under the base model. A reader entertains a less restrictive model that is local to the base model, under which the estimate<jats:italic>\u0109<\/jats:italic>may be biased. We study the reduction in worst\u2010case bias from a restriction that requires the reader's model to respect the relationship between<jats:italic>c<\/jats:italic>and<jats:italic>\u03b3<\/jats:italic>specified by the base model. Our main result shows that the proportional reduction in worst\u2010case bias depends only on a quantity we call the<jats:italic>informativeness<\/jats:italic>of<d:math xmlns:d=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\" display=\"inline\"><d:mover accent=\"true\"><d:mi>\u03b3<\/d:mi><d:mo>\u02c6<\/d:mo><\/d:mover><\/d:math>for<jats:italic>\u0109<\/jats:italic>. Informativeness can be easily estimated even for complex models. We recommend that researchers report estimated informativeness alongside their descriptive analyses, and we illustrate with applications to three recent papers.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3982\/ecta16768","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,11,17]],"date-time":"2020-11-17T13:43:08Z","timestamp":1605620588000},"page":"2231-2258","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":32,"title":["On the Informativeness of Descriptive Statistics for Structural Estimates"],"prefix":"10.3982","volume":"88","author":[{"given":"Isaiah","family":"Andrews","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Economics, Harvard University"},{"name":"NBER"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Matthew","family":"Gentzkow","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Economics, Stanford University"},{"name":"NBER"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jesse M.","family":"Shapiro","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Economics, Brown University"},{"name":"NBER"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"2359","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020]]},"reference":[{"issue":"2","key":"ecta200221-bib-0001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"371","DOI":"10.1086\/685299","volume":"124","author":"Alatas","year":"2016","journal-title":"Journal of Political Economy"},{"issue":"4","key":"ecta200221-bib-0002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1553","DOI":"10.1093\/qje\/qjx023","volume":"132","author":"Andrews","year":"2017","journal-title":"Quarterly Journal of Economics"},{"key":"ecta200221-bib-0003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Andrews, I., M. 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