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利用观测数据学习处理分配政策AI 解读

In many areas, practitioners seek to use observational data to learn a treatment assignment policy that satisfies application-specific constraints, such as budget, fairness, simplicity, or other functional form constraints. For example, policies may be restricted to take the form of decision trees based on a limited set of easily observable individual characteristics. We propose a new approach to this problem motivated by the theory of semiparametrically efficient…

事件研究中平行趋势的作用：环境经济学应用AI 解读

Difference-in-Differences (DID) research designs usually rely on variation of treatment timing such that, after making an appropriate parallel trends assumption, one can identify, estimate, and make inference about causal effects. In practice, however, different DID procedures rely on different parallel trends assumptions (PTA), and recover different causal parameters. In this paper, we focus on staggered DID (also referred as event-studies) and discuss the role played by…

工具变量分位数回归AI 解读

This chapter reviews the instrumental variable quantile regression model of Chernozhukov and Hansen (2005). We discuss the key conditions used for identification of structural quantile effects within this model which include the availability of instruments and a restriction on the ranks of structural disturbances. We outline several approaches to obtaining point estimates and performing statistical inference for model parameters. Finally, we point to possible directions for…

利用面板数据界定分布处理效应：岗位流失应用AI 解读

This paper develops new techniques to bound distributional treatment effect parameters that depend on the joint distribution of potential outcomes -- an object not identified by standard identifying assumptions such as selection on observables or even when treatment is randomly assigned. I show that panel data and an additional assumption on the dependence between untreated potential outcomes for the treated group over time (i) provide more identifying power for…

条件平均处理效应及其他因果函数的去偏机器学习AI 解读

This paper provides estimation and inference methods for the best linear predictor (approximation) of a structural function, such as conditional average structural and treatment effects, and structural derivatives, based on modern machine learning (ML) tools. We represent this structural function as a conditional expectation of an unbiased signal that depends on a nuisance parameter, which we estimate by modern machine learning techniques. We first adjust the signal to make…

异质性处理效应的准预言机估计AI 解读

Flexible estimation of heterogeneous treatment effects lies at the heart of many statistical challenges, such as personalized medicine and optimal resource allocation. In this paper, we develop a general class of two-step algorithms for heterogeneous treatment effect estimation in observational studies. We first estimate marginal effects and treatment propensities in order to form an objective function that isolates the causal component of the signal. Then, we optimize this…

存在横截面与序列相关的面板数据可行广义最小二乘AI 解读

This paper considers generalized least squares (GLS) estimation for linear panel data models. By estimating the large error covariance matrix consistently, the proposed feasible GLS (FGLS) estimator is more efficient than the ordinary least squares (OLS) in the presence of heteroskedasticity, serial, and cross-sectional correlations. To take into account the serial correlations, we employ the banding method. To take into account the cross-sectional correlations, we suggest…

局部稳健的半参数估计AI 解读

Many economic and causal parameters depend on nonparametric or high dimensional first steps. We give a general construction of locally robust/orthogonal moment functions for GMM, where moment conditions have zero derivative with respect to first steps. We show that orthogonal moment functions can be constructed by adding to identifying moments the nonparametric influence function for the effect of the first step on identifying moments. Orthogonal moments reduce model…

利用 Wasserstein 生成对抗网络设计蒙特卡洛模拟AI 解读

When researchers develop new econometric methods it is common practice to compare the performance of the new methods to those of existing methods in Monte Carlo studies. The credibility of such Monte Carlo studies is often limited because of the freedom the researcher has in choosing the design. In recent years a new class of generative models emerged in the machine learning literature, termed Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) that can be used to systematically generate…

类别型调查回答的潜在狄利克雷分析AI 解读

Beliefs are important determinants of an individual's choices and economic outcomes, so understanding how they comove and differ across individuals is of considerable interest. Researchers often rely on surveys that report individual beliefs as qualitative data. We propose using a Bayesian hierarchical latent class model to analyze the comovements and observed heterogeneity in categorical survey responses. We show that the statistical model corresponds to an economic…

高维时间序列的社区网络自回归模型AI 解读

Modeling responses on the nodes of a large-scale network is an important task that arises commonly in practice. This paper proposes a community network vector autoregressive (CNAR) model, which utilizes the network structure to characterize the dependence and intra-community homogeneity of the high dimensional time series. The CNAR model greatly increases the flexibility and generality of the network vector autoregressive (Zhu et al, 2017, NAR) model by allowing…

复杂结构模型的近似极大似然估计AI 解读

Indirect Inference (I-I) is a popular technique for estimating complex parametric models whose likelihood function is intractable, however, the statistical efficiency of I-I estimation is questionable. While the efficient method of moments, Gallant and Tauchen (1996), promises efficiency, the price to pay for this efficiency is a loss of parsimony and thereby a potential lack of robustness to model misspecification. This stands in contrast to simpler I-I estimation…

通过分布回归估计网络与面板分位数效应AI 解读

This paper provides a method to construct simultaneous confidence bands for quantile functions and quantile effects in nonlinear network and panel models with unobserved two-way effects, strictly exogenous covariates, and possibly discrete outcome variables. The method is based upon projection of simultaneous confidence bands for distribution functions constructed from fixed effects distribution regression estimators. These fixed effects estimators are debiased to deal with…

断点回归设计AI 解读

This handbook chapter gives an introduction to the sharp regression discontinuity design, covering identification, estimation, inference, and falsification methods.

属性缺失下的双重稳健处理效应估计AI 解读

Missing attributes are ubiquitous in causal inference, as they are in most applied statistical work. In this paper, we consider various sets of assumptions under which causal inference is possible despite missing attributes and discuss corresponding approaches to average treatment effect estimation, including generalized propensity score methods and multiple imputation. Across an extensive simulation study, we show that no single method systematically out-performs others. We…

未知聚类结构面板模型的标准误AI 解读

This paper develops a new standard-error estimator for linear panel data models. The proposed estimator is robust to heteroskedasticity, serial correlation, and cross-sectional correlation of unknown forms. The serial correlation is controlled by the Newey-West method. To control for cross-sectional correlations, we propose to use the thresholding method, without assuming the clusters to be known. We establish the consistency of the proposed estimator. Monte Carlo…

双重稳健的双重差分估计量AI 解读

This article proposes doubly robust estimators for the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) in difference-in-differences (DID) research designs. In contrast to alternative DID estimators, the proposed estimators are consistent if either (but not necessarily both) a propensity score or outcome regression working models are correctly specified. We also derive the semiparametric efficiency bound for the ATT in DID designs when either panel or repeated cross-section…

学习何时启动处理的政策规则AI 解读

Many applied decision-making problems have a dynamic component: The policymaker needs not only to choose whom to treat, but also when to start which treatment. For example, a medical doctor may choose between postponing treatment (watchful waiting) and prescribing one of several available treatments during the many visits from a patient. We develop an "advantage doubly robust" estimator for learning such dynamic treatment rules using observational data under the assumption…

多阈值或多评分变量断点回归设计的分析AI 解读

We introduce the \texttt{Stata} (and \texttt{R}) package \texttt{rdmulti}, which includes three commands (\texttt{rdmc}, \texttt{rdmcplot}, \texttt{rdms}) for analyzing Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs with multiple cutoffs or multiple scores. The command \texttt{rdmc} applies to non-cumulative and cumulative multi-cutoff RD settings. It calculates pooled and cutoff-specific RD treatment effects, and provides robust bias-corrected inference procedures. Post estimation…

分位数回归过程的快速算法AI 解读

The widespread use of quantile regression methods depends crucially on the existence of fast algorithms. Despite numerous algorithmic improvements, the computation time is still non-negligible because researchers often estimate many quantile regressions and use the bootstrap for inference. We suggest two new fast algorithms for the estimation of a sequence of quantile regressions at many quantile indexes. The first algorithm applies the preprocessing idea of Portnoy and…

通过倾向得分实现协变量分布平衡AI 解读

This paper proposes new estimators for the propensity score that aim to maximize the covariate distribution balance among different treatment groups. Heuristically, our proposed procedure attempts to estimate a propensity score model by making the underlying covariate distribution of different treatment groups as close to each other as possible. Our estimators are data-driven, do not rely on tuning parameters such as bandwidths, admit an asymptotic linear representation, and…

多阈值断点回归设计中的处理效应外推AI 解读

In non-experimental settings, the Regression Discontinuity (RD) design is one of the most credible identification strategies for program evaluation and causal inference. However, RD treatment effect estimands are necessarily local, making statistical methods for the extrapolation of these effects a key area for development. We introduce a new method for extrapolation of RD effects that relies on the presence of multiple cutoffs, and is therefore design-based. Our approach…

持续时间结果下处理效应异质性的非参数检验AI 解读

This article proposes different tests for treatment effect heterogeneity when the outcome of interest, typically a duration variable, may be right-censored. The proposed tests study whether a policy 1) has zero distributional (average) effect for all subpopulations defined by covariate values, and 2) has homogeneous average effect across different subpopulations. The proposed tests are based on two-step Kaplan-Meier integrals and do not rely on parametric distributional…

断点回归中稳健偏差修正推断的最优带宽选择AI 解读

Modern empirical work in Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs often employs local polynomial estimation and inference with a mean square error (MSE) optimal bandwidth choice. This bandwidth yields an MSE-optimal RD treatment effect estimator, but is by construction invalid for inference. Robust bias corrected (RBC) inference methods are valid when using the MSE-optimal bandwidth, but we show they yield suboptimal confidence intervals in terms of coverage error. We establish…