The Effect of Maternal Drug Use on Birth Weight: Measurement Error in Binary Variables.

The authors develop a method to correct for nonrandom measurement error in a binary indicator of illicit drugs. Their results suggest that estimates of the effect of self-reported prenatal drug use on birth weight are biased upwards by measurement error--a finding contrary to predictions of a model of random measurement error. More accurate estimates of the true effect of drug use on birth weight can be obtained by using the predicted probability of falsely reporting drug use. Thus out-of-sample information on drug use may improve estimates of the effect of reported drug use in other settings. Copyright 1996 by Oxford University Press.