Was Javert Right to Be Suspicious? Marginal Treatment Effects with Duration Outcomes
Abstract We identify the distributional and quantile marginal treatment effect functions when the outcome is right-censored. Our method requires a conditionally exogenous instrument and random censoring. We propose asymptotically consistent semi-parametric estimators and valid inferential procedures for the target functions . To illustrate, we evaluate the effect of alternative sentences (fines and community service vs. no punishment) on recidivism in Brazil. Our results…