每日简报

空间处理的因果推断AI 解读

Many events and policies (treatments) occur at specific spatial locations, with researchers interested in their effects on nearby units. I approach the spatial treatment setting from an experimental perspective: What ideal experiment would we design to estimate the causal effects of spatial treatments? This perspective motivates a comparison between units near realized treatment locations and units near counterfactual (unrealized) candidate locations, which differs from…

个性化政策的机制设计：激励运动的实地实验AI 解读

Personalizing policies can theoretically increase their effectiveness. However, personalization is difficult when individual types are unobservable and the preferences of policymakers and individuals are not aligned, which could cause individuals to misreport their type. Mechanism design offers a strategy to overcome this issue: offer an “incentive‐compatible” menu of policy choices designed to induce participants to select the variant intended for their type. Using a field…

农村移民与城市非正规就业：来自巴西的证据AI 解读

This paper studies the economic effects of rural‐urban migration on Brazilian cities. Using a shift‐share IV design, we show that, over a decade, drought‐induced immigration reduces informality, has no effect on unemployment, and increases the number of formal firms and jobs. Downward formal wage adjustments play a key role, as these long‐run effects are weaker in regions with stronger wage rigidity. In the short run, when wage rigidity is strongest, we replicate the…

线性面板模型中固定效应的最优收缩估计AI 解读

Shrinkage methods are frequently used to improve the precision of least squares estimators of fixed effects. However, widely used shrinkage estimators guarantee improved precision only under strong distributional assumptions. I develop an estimator for the fixed effects that obtains the best possible mean squared error within a class of shrinkage estimators. This class includes conventional shrinkage estimators and the optimality does not require distributional assumptions.…

延迟接受算法的实验评估：来自逾百个军官劳动力市场的证据AI 解读

Internal labor markets are increasingly important for matching workers to jobs within organizations. We present evidence from a randomized trial that compares matching workers to jobs using the deferred acceptance (DA) algorithm to the traditional manager‐directed matching process. Our setting is the U.S. Army's internal labor market, which matches over 14,000 officers to units annually. We find that DA reduces administrative burden and increases match quality as measured by…

细粒度情境中的空间经济学AI 解读

We examine the application of quantitative spatial models to the growing body of fine spatial data used to study local economic outcomes. In granular settings in which people choose from a large set of potential residence‐workplace pairs, observed outcomes in part reflect idiosyncratic choices. Using analytical examples, Monte Carlo simulations, and event studies of neighborhood employment booms, we demonstrate that calibration procedures that equate observed shares and…

基尼系数的子群分解：老问题的新解法AI 解读

We derive a novel decomposition of the Gini coefficient into within‐ and between‐group inequality terms that sum to the aggregate Gini coefficient. This decomposition is derived from a set of axioms that ensure desirable behavior for the within‐ and between‐group inequality terms. The decomposition of the Gini coefficient is unique given our axioms, easy to compute, and can be interpreted geometrically.

网络干扰下因果推断的局部方法AI 解读

We propose a new nonparametric modeling framework for causal inference when outcomes depend on how agents are linked in a social or economic network. Such network interference describes a large literature on treatment spillovers, social interactions, social learning, information diffusion, disease and financial contagion, social capital formation, and more. Our approach works by first characterizing how an agent is linked in the network using the configuration of other…

连续时间动态离散选择博弈的识别与估计AI 解读

This paper considers the theoretical, computational, and econometric properties of continuous‐time dynamic discrete choice games with stochastically sequential moves, introduced by Arcidiacono, Bayer, Blevins, and Ellickson (2016). We consider identification of the rate of move arrivals, which was assumed to be known in previous work, as well as a generalized version with heterogeneous move arrival rates. We reestablish conditions for existence of a Markov perfect…

满意化行为、加总与拟线性效用AI 解读

This paper studies approximation error in the quasilinear utility model. Error arises because individuals do not perfectly optimize, and instead satisfice. We investigate the consequences of individual satisficing for modeling aggregate demand, providing an approximate aggregation theorem. We present a simple method for statistical inference on the minimal level of satisficing needed to explain aggregate data. In an illustrative application to scanner panel data, we find…

潜在状态测量不完善时的条件选择概率估计AI 解读

Traditional dynamic discrete choice model—Conditional Choice Probability estimator (DDCM‐CCP) literature considered identification using the likelihood of longitudinal choice only. However, such an approach has a limitation in identifying flexible dynamics for latent state due to the discrete and typically small‐dimensional nature of choice. This paper extends this literature to utilize imperfect measurements, called proxies, for a latent discrete state. I first show that…

数据丰富环境中非对称损失下的二元选择：理论与算法公平性应用AI 解读

We study the binary choice problem in a data‐rich environment with asymmetric loss functions. The econometrics literature covers nonparametric binary choice problems but does not offer computationally attractive solutions in data‐rich environments. The machine learning literature has many algorithms but is focused mostly on loss functions that are independent of covariates. We show that theoretically valid decisions on binary outcomes with general loss functions can be…

工具变量模型中的识别：Abadie 的 Kappa 的核心作用AI 解读

We study instrumental variables models characterized by: (i) Unobserved heterogeneity consisting of potential outcomes and response types that describe how the instrument determines treatment choice; (ii) Conditional independence of the instrument and the unobserved heterogeneity; and (iii) Convex restrictions on the distribution of unobserved heterogeneity. We show certain causal parameters are identified in these models if and only if a version of the kappa of Abadie…

选择由谁选择：能源返利项目中的自选择定向政策AI 解读

We develop an optimal policy assignment rule that integrates two distinctive approaches commonly used in economics—targeting by observables and targeting through self‐selection . Our method can be used with experimental or quasi‐experimental data to identify who should be treated, be untreated, and self‐select to achieve a policymaker's objective. Applying this method to a randomized controlled trial on a residential energy rebate program, we find that targeting that…

加价率估计指南：评估财务数据中的估计结果AI 解读

Macroeconomic outcomes depend on the distribution of markups across firms and over time, making firm‐level markup estimates key for macroeconomic analysis. Methods to obtain these estimates require data on the prices that firms charge. Firm‐level data with wide coverage, however, primarily come from financial statements, which lack information on prices. We use an analytical framework to show that trends in markups over time or the dispersion of markups across firms can…

含噪协变量的因果推断：异方差测量误差与差分隐私AI 解读

We study causal inference with high‐dimensional covariates, observed with various types of heteroscedastic noise. Our main assumption is that the true covariates are low rank, which we empirically evaluate with plots and interpret as approximate repeated measurements. This assumption delivers semiparametric inference on the causal parameter, as precisely as if the true covariates were available. A methodological contribution is to introduce an error‐in‐variable balancing…