Television Causes Debt? – Perhaps Not !

“Results indicate that television increases the tendency to borrow for household goods and to carry debt.” says the article “Television Access Linked to Household Debt” in the November 4th issue of TV Technology (available on-line here) reviewing a paper by two Hunter College economics researchers.

No PhD am I, but I do remember some things from my college research methods course. I remember there being something about controlling for external validity. In their paper, Drs. Baker and George do not appear to have controlled for the effects of increased household newspaper and magazine (think Life and Look) subscriptions. [As their data deals with the 1950's and '60s.] Perhaps printed ads in the home are not a game changer, but think about the possibility that babies cause storks.