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Estimating the causal effect of an intervention in a time series setting: the C-ARIMA approach

Fiammetta Menchetti, Fabrizio Cipollini, Fabrizia Mealli

arXiv 11 Mar 2021 · Econometrics · 3 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2103.06740 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

The Rubin Causal Model (RCM) is a framework that allows to define the causal effect of an intervention as a contrast of potential outcomes. In recent years, several methods have been developed under the RCM to estimate causal effects in time series settings. None of these makes use of ARIMA models, which are instead very common in the econometrics literature. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, C-ARIMA, to define and estimate the causal effect of an intervention in a time series setting under the RCM. We first formalize the assumptions enabling the definition, the estimation and the attribution of the effect to the intervention; we then check the validity of the proposed method with an extensive simulation study, comparing its performance against a standard intervention analysis approach. In the empirical application, we use C-ARIMA to assess the causal effect of a permanent price reduction on supermarket sales. The CausalArima R package provides an implementation of our proposed approach.

Citation extraction

52
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85
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distinct cited
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appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 86% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

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
1Bojinov, I. and Shephard, N (2019) Time series experiments and causal estimands: exact randomization tests and trading1.00073100%
2Bojinov, I., Rambachan, A., and Shephard, N (2020) Panel experiments and dynamic causal effects: A finite population perspective0.92843100%
3Box, G. E. and Tiao, G. C (1976) Comparison of forecast and actuality0.87452100%
4Callaway, B. and Sant’Anna, P. H (2020) Difference-in-differences with multiple time periods0.87452100%
5Box, G. E. and Tiao, G. C (1975) Intervention analysis with applications to economic and environmental problems0.84333100%
6Brodersen, K. H., Gallusser, F., Koehler, J., Remy, N., and Scott, S… (2015) Inferring causal impact using Bayesian structural time-series models0.81142100%
7Papadogeorgou, G., Mealli, F., Zigler, C. M., Dominici, F., Wasfy, J… (2018) Causal impact of the hospital readmissions reduction program on hospital readmissions and mortality self0.73732100%
8Sun, L. and Abraham, S (2020) Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects0.73732100%
9Bhattacharyya, M. and Layton, A. P (1979) Effectiveness of seat belt legislation on the queensland road toll—an Australian case study in intervention analysis0.64422100%
10Imbens, G. W. and Rubin, D. B (2015) Causal inference in Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 52 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
1ARMA-Design: Optimal Treatment Allocation Strategies for A/B Testing in Partially Observable Experiments0.73732
2Dynamic causal inference with time series data0.40511