THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL VALIDITY OF THE REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY DESIGN: A META‐ANALYSIS OF 15 WITHIN‐STUDY COMPARISONS

Theory predicts that regression discontinuity (RD) provides valid causal inference at the cutoff score that determines treatment assignment. One purpose of this paper is to test RD's internal validity across 15 studies. Each of them assesses the correspondence between causal estimates from an RD study and a randomized control trial (RCT) when the estimates are made at the same cutoff point where they should not differ asymptotically. However, statistical error, imperfect design implementation, and a plethora of different possible analysis options, mean that they might nonetheless differ. We test whether they do, assuming that the bias potential is greater with RDs than RCTs. A second purpose of this paper is to investigate the external validity of RD by exploring how the size of the bias estimates varies across the 15 studies, for they differ in their settings, interventions, analyses, and implementation details. Both Bayesian and frequentist meta‐analysis methods show that the RD bias is below 0.01 standard deviations on average, indicating RD's high internal validity. When the study‐specific estimates are shrunken to capitalize on the information the other studies provide, all the RD causal estimates fall within 0.07 standard deviations of their RCT counterparts, now indicating high external validity. With unshrunken estimates, the mean RD bias is still essentially zero, but the distribution of RD bias estimates is less tight, especially with smaller samples and when parametric RD analyses are used.     

回顾社会主义历史展望社会主义前景--评《21世纪社会主义丛书》

安徽人民出版社出版的21世纪社会主义丛书问世了.21世纪社会主义丛书是由靳辉明、周新城、顾海良三位教授主编的国家九五重点图书.它包括六本书:《社会主义历史、理论与现实》、《世纪中国》、《苏联东欧国家的演变及其历史教训》、《越南、古巴社会主义现状与前景》、《资本主义的社会矛盾及其历史走向》、《当代国外社会主义流派》.这是一套系统研究社会主义历史、现状并展望未来的理论专著.丛书运用马克思主义的立场、观点和方法,从总体上对20世纪社会主义理论和实践进行回顾和总结,研究和分析了社会主义在各个时期的历史进程,尤其是社会主义在理论上的发展和创新;全方位地研究和分析当代资本主义社会存在的各种矛盾及其历史演化,从而揭示了资本主义的历史走向;论述了中国、越南、古巴等社会主义国家社会主义建设和改革(革新)开放的历程,预测了21世纪的前景;冷峻地分析了苏联东欧国家演变的历史过程,总结了其历史教训;系统地研究和阐发了当代国外颇具影响的社会主义流派,分析了其中的积极因素.     

'TRADITIONS' AS CONTEXT IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THEORY

Abstract An adequate methodology in the history of political theory is dependent on a adequate philosophy of history. Firstly, in the course of a critical consideration of other writers on methodology (principally W. G. Greenleaf and Q. Skinner) it is suggested that 'intellectual traditions', of two sorts, might provide an appropriate unit of context. Secondly, a broadly anti-naturalist philosophy of history is adopted, which makes use of Collingwood and Hegel, and it is argued that intellectual traditions are compatible with this view of historical knowledge. It is concluded that the opposition between the universalist text-orientated approach and the particularist historical approach to the study of the history of political theory is a false dichotomy. We can learn from past ideas as a traditional inheritance.