Matching, Regression Discontinuity, Difference in Differences, and Beyond


Book Description

Myoung-jae Lee reviews the three most popular methods (and their extensions) in applied economics and other social sciences: matching, regression discontinuity, and difference in differences. This book introduces the underlying econometric and statistical ideas, shows what is identified and how the identified parameters are estimated, and illustrates how they are applied with real empirical examples. Lee emphasizes how to implement the three methods with data: data and programs are provided in a useful online appendix. All readers-theoretical econometricians/statisticians, applied economists/social-scientists and researchers/students-will find something useful in the book from different perspectives.




Matching, Regression Discontinuity, Difference in Differences, and Beyond


Book Description

Myoung-jae Lee reviews the three most popular methods (and their extensions) in applied economics and other social sciences: matching, regression discontinuity, and difference in differences. This book introduces the underlying econometric and statistical ideas, shows what is identified and how the identified parameters are estimated, and illustrates how they are applied with real empirical examples. Lee emphasizes how to implement the three methods with data: data and programs are provided in a useful online appendix. All readers-theoretical econometricians/statisticians, applied economists/social-scientists and researchers/students-will find something useful in the book from different perspectives.




Impact Evaluation in Practice, Second Edition


Book Description

The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development.




Micro-econometrics for Policy, Program, and Treatment Effects


Book Description

In many disciplines of science it is vital to know the effect of a 'treatment' on a response variable of interest; the effect being known as the 'treatment effect'. Here, the treatment can be a drug, an education program or an economic policy, and the response variable can be an illness,academic achievement or GDP. Once the effect is found, it is possible to intervene to adjust the treatment and attain a desired level of the response variable.A basic way to measure the treatment effect is to compare two groups, one of which received the treatment and the other did not. If the two groups are homogenous in all aspects other than their treatment status, then the difference between their response outcomes is the desired treatment effect. Butif they differ in some aspects in addition to the treatment status, the difference in the response outcomes may be due to the combined influence of more than one factor. In non-experimental data where the treatment is not randomly assigned but self-selected, the subjects tend to differ in observedor unobserved characteristics. It is therefore imperative that the comparison be carried out with subjects similar in their characteristics. This book explains how this problem can be overcome so the attributable effect of the treatment can be found.This book brings to the fore recent advances in econometrics for treatment effects. The purpose of this book is to put together various economic treatments effect models in a coherent fashion, make it clear which can be parameters of interest, and show how they can be identified and estimated underweak assumptions. The emphasis throughout the book is on semi- and non-parametric estimation methods, but traditional parametric approaches are also discussed. This book is ideally suited to researchers and graduate students with a basic knowledge of econometrics.







Nutrition Economics


Book Description

Nutrition Economics: Principles and Policy Applications establishes the core criteria for consideration as new policies and regulations are developed, including application-based principles that ensure practical, effective implementation of policy. From the economic contribution of nutrition on quality of life, to the costs of malnutrition on society from both an individual and governmental level, this book guides the reader through the factors that can determine the success or failure of a nutrition policy. Written by an expert in policy development, and incorporating an encompassing view of the factors that impact nutrition from an economic standpoint (and their resulting effects), this book is unique in its focus on guiding other professionals and those in advanced stages of study to important considerations for correct policy modeling and evaluation. As creating policy without a comprehensive understanding of the relevant contributing factors that lead to failure is not an option, this book provides a timely reference. - Connects the direct and indirect impacts of economic policy on nutritional status - Provides practical insights into the analysis of nutrition policies and programs that will produce meaningful results - Presents a hands-on approach on how to apply economic theory to the design of nutritional policies and programs




Causal Inference


Book Description

An accessible, contemporary introduction to the methods for determining cause and effect in the Social Sciences “Causation versus correlation has been the basis of arguments—economic and otherwise—since the beginning of time. Causal Inference: The Mixtape uses legit real-world examples that I found genuinely thought-provoking. It’s rare that a book prompts readers to expand their outlook; this one did for me.”—Marvin Young (Young MC) Causal inference encompasses the tools that allow social scientists to determine what causes what. In a messy world, causal inference is what helps establish the causes and effects of the actions being studied—for example, the impact (or lack thereof) of increases in the minimum wage on employment, the effects of early childhood education on incarceration later in life, or the influence on economic growth of introducing malaria nets in developing regions. Scott Cunningham introduces students and practitioners to the methods necessary to arrive at meaningful answers to the questions of causation, using a range of modeling techniques and coding instructions for both the R and the Stata programming languages.




A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs


Book Description

In this Element and its accompanying second Element, A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs: Extensions, Matias Cattaneo, Nicolás Idrobo, and Rocıìo Titiunik provide an accessible and practical guide for the analysis and interpretation of regression discontinuity (RD) designs that encourages the use of a common set of practices and facilitates the accumulation of RD-based empirical evidence. In this Element, the authors discuss the foundations of the canonical Sharp RD design, which has the following features: (i) the score is continuously distributed and has only one dimension, (ii) there is only one cutoff, and (iii) compliance with the treatment assignment is perfect. In the second Element, the authors discuss practical and conceptual extensions to this basic RD setup.




Celebrating Statistics


Book Description

Sir David Cox is among the most important statisticians of the past half-century. He has made pioneering and highly influential contributions to a uniquely wide range of topics in statistics and applied probability. His teaching has inspired generations of students, and many well-known researchers have begun as his graduate students or have worked with him at early stages of their careers. Legions of others have been stimulated and enlightened by the clear, concise, and direct exposition exemplified by his many books, papers, and lectures. This book presents a collection of chapters by major statistical researchers who attended a conference held at the University of Neuchatel in July 2004 to celebrate David Cox's 80th birthday. Each chapter is carefully crafted and collectively present current developments across a wide range of research areas from epidemiology, environmental science, finance, computing and medicine. Edited by Anthony Davison, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland; Yadolah Dodge, University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; and N. Wermuth, Goteborg University, Sweden, with chapters by Ole E. Barndorff-Nielsen, Sarah C. Darby, Christina Davies, Peter J. Diggle, David Firth, Peter Hall, Valerie S. Isham, Kung-Yee Liang, Peter McCullagh, Paul McGale, Amilcare Porporato, Nancy Reid, Brian D. Ripley, Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe, Andrea Rotnitzky, Neil Shephard, Scott L. Zeger, and including a brief biography of David Cox, this book is suitable for students of statistics, epidemiology, environmental science, finance, computing and medicine, and academic and practising statisticians.




Competitive Agents in Certain and Uncertain Markets


Book Description

For all its elaborate theories and models, economics always reduces to comparisons. Should we build A rather than B? Will I be better off if I eat D rather than C? How much will it cost me to produce F instead of E? At root, the ultimate goal of economics is simple: assessing the alternatives and finding the best possible outcome. This basic mathematical concept underlies all introductions to the field of economics, yet as advanced students progress through the discipline, they often lose track of this foundational idea when presented with real-world complications and uncertainty. In Competitive Agents in Certain and Uncertain Markets, Robert G. Chambers develops an integrated analytic framework for treating consumer, producer, and market equilibrium analyses as special cases of a generic optimization problem. He builds on lessons learned by all beginning students of economics to show how basic concepts can still be applied even in complex and highly uncertain conditions. Drawing from optimization theory, Chambers demonstrates how the same unified mathematical framework applies to both stochastic and non-stochastic decision settings. The book borrows from both convex and variational analysis and gives special emphasis to differentiability, conjugacy theory, and Fenchel's Duality Theorem. Throughout, Chambers includes practical examples, problems, and exercises to make abstract material accessible. Bringing together essential theoretical tools for understanding decision-making under uncertainty, Competitive Agents in Certain and Uncertain Markets provides a unified framework for analyzing a broad range of microeconomic decisions. This book will be an invaluable resource for advanced graduate students and scholars of microeconomic theory.