Reply to “Time is Not A Theoretical Variable”

Abstract

We thank Neal Beck for his comments. In general, there is little difference in our theoretical and practical positions. We all agree that in some applications, time dummies can be problematic; controlling for temporal dependence is important for less-biased estimation of the coefficients on our substantive regressors; a smoothed function of time (whether via a cubic polynomial or spline) is a useful way to model temporal dependence in grouped binary data; and viewing the graph of the hazard can be informative.