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Selection Bias in Studies of Sanctions Efficacy Nooruddin, Irfan Uploaded 04-05-2001 Keywords sanctions strategic censoring censored probit Abstract Sanctions rarely work but they continue to be used frequently by policymakers. Previous research on the determinants of sanctions identifies various factors that are thought to contribute to sanctions success but do not give us an answer to the original puzzle of why this ineffective policy is so commonly used. I argue that this is because studies of sanctions have ignored the problem of strategic censoring by focusing only on cases of observed sanctions. In this paper, I develop a unified model of sanction imposition and success and test it using a simultaneous equation censored probit model. The selection- corrected sanction model finds that the process by which sanctions are imposed is linked to the process by which some succeed while others fail, and that the unmeasured factors that lead to sanction imposition are negatively related to their success.