A Balls-and-Bins Model of Trade: Reply
回应Blum等人对球与箱模型的批评，指出其第一点关于企业级数据改变结果的说法可讨论，但第二点认为模型不合适的批评缺乏依据，并说明该模型在丰富数据中识别模式的价值。
Blum, Claro, and Horstmann (2016) make two statements about the balls-and-bins model of Armenter and Koren (2014). First, that using firm-level shipment data changes some of our results. Second, that the balls-and-bins model is not an appropriate statistical method. We respond to the first statement and argue that the second statement is unfounded and unrelated to the first. Indeed, the work of Blum, Claro, and Horstmann (2016) is a perfect example of how to use balls-and-bins in a rich dataset to spot interesting data patterns.