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A Unified Framework for Efficient Estimation of General Treatment Models

Chunrong Ai, Oliver Linton, Kaiji Motegi, Zheng Zhang

arXiv 15 Aug 2018 · Econometrics · publishedQuantitative Economics (2021) · 23 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:1808.04936 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper presents a weighted optimization framework that unifies the binary,multi-valued, continuous, as well as mixture of discrete and continuous treatment, under the unconfounded treatment assignment. With a general loss function, the framework includes the average, quantile and asymmetric least squares causal effect of treatment as special cases. For this general framework, we first derive the semiparametric efficiency bound for the causal effect of treatment, extending the existing bound results to a wider class of models. We then propose a generalized optimization estimation for the causal effect with weights estimated by solving an expanding set of equations. Under some sufficient conditions, we establish consistency and asymptotic normality of the proposed estimator of the causal effect and show that the estimator attains our semiparametric efficiency bound, thereby extending the existing literature on efficient estimation of causal effect to a wider class of applications. Finally, we discuss etimation of some causal effect functionals such as the treatment effect curve and the average outcome. To evaluate the finite sample performance of the proposed procedure, we conduct a small scale simulation study and find that the proposed estimation has practical value. To illustrate the applicability of the procedure, we revisit the literature on campaign advertise and campaign contributions. Unlike the existing procedures which produce mixed results, we find no evidence of campaign advertise on campaign contribution.

Citation extraction

11
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Fong, Hazlett, and Imai (2018) Covariate Balancing Propensity Score for a Continuous Treatment: Application to the Efficacy of Political Advertisements0.693171100%
2Ai, Linton, Motegi, and Zhang (2018) A Unified Framework for Efficient Estimation of Binary, Multi-level, Continuous and Mixture of Discrete and Continuous Treatment…0.64441100%
3Firpo (2007) Efficient Semiparametric Estimation of Quantile Treatment Effects0.58531100%
4Cattaneo (2010) Efficient semiparametric estimation of multi-valued treatment effects under ignorability0.58531100%
5Hahn (1998) On the role of the propensity score in efficient semiparametric estimation of average treatment effects0.51121100%
6Masry (1996) Multivariate local polynomial regression for time series: uniform strong consistency and rates0.51121100%
7Robins, Rotnitzky, and Zhao (1994) Estimation of regression coefficients when some regressors are not always observed0.51121100%
8Bickel, Klaassen, Ritov, and Wellner (1993) Efficient and Adaptive Estimation for Semiparametric Models0.40511100%
9Andrews (1994) Empirical process methods in econometrics0.40511100%
10Chan, Yam, and Zhang (2016) Globally efficient non-parametric inference of average treatment effects by empirical balancing calibration weighting self0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 11 scored citations.

Cited by, within the corpus

arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1A Unified Framework for Specification Tests of Continuous Treatment Effect Models1.000194
2Higher-Order Debiased Estimators for General Treatment Models0.946136
3Stable Probability Weighting Large-Sample and Finite-Sample Estimation and Inference Methods for Heterogeneous Causal Effects of Multivalued Treatments Under Limited Overlap0.92843
4On Local Overidentification and Efficiency Gains in Modern Causal Inference and Data Combination0.81142
5Semiparametric Efficiency in Policy Learning with General Treatments0.721164
6New $n$-consistent, numerically stable higher-order influence function estimators0.64422
7Balancing Weights for Causal Mediation Analysis0.40511
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