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Testing Monotonicity of Mean Potential Outcomes in a Continuous Treatment with High-Dimensional Data

Yu-Chin Hsu, Martin Huber, Ying-Ying Lee, Chu-An Liu

arXiv 8 Jun 2021 · Econometrics · publishedThe Review of Economics and Statistics (2024) · 2 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2106.04237 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

While most treatment evaluations focus on binary interventions, a growing literature also considers continuously distributed treatments. We propose a Cram\'{e}r-von Mises-type test for testing whether the mean potential outcome given a specific treatment has a weakly monotonic relationship with the treatment dose under a weak unconfoundedness assumption. In a nonseparable structural model, applying our method amounts to testing monotonicity of the average structural function in the continuous treatment of interest. To flexibly control for a possibly high-dimensional set of covariates in our testing approach, we propose a double debiased machine learning estimator that accounts for covariates in a data-driven way. We show that the proposed test controls asymptotic size and is consistent against any fixed alternative. These theoretical findings are supported by the Monte-Carlo simulations. As an empirical illustration, we apply our test to the Job Corps study and reject a weakly negative relationship between the treatment (hours in academic and vocational training) and labor market performance among relatively low treatment values.

Citation extraction

43
references
101
in-text mentions
43
distinct cited
7
self-citations
10,680
main-text words

appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 81% 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
1Colangelo, K. and Y.-Y. Lee (2022) Double debiased machine learning nonparametric inference with continuous treatments1.000133100%
2Hsu, Y.-C. and S. Shen (2020) Testing monotonicity of conditional treatment effects under regression discontinuity designs self1.00053100%
3Hsu, Y.-C., C.-A. Liu, and X. Shi (2019) Testing generalized regression monotonicity self0.9507486%
4Flores, C. A., A. Flores-Lagunes, A. Gonzalez, and T. C. Neumann (2012) Estimating the effects of length of exposure to instruction in a training program: The case of job corps0.87472100%
5Chernozhukov, V., D. Chetverikov, M. Demirer, E. Duflo, C. Hansen, W… (2018) Double/debiased machine learning for treatment and structural parameters0.87452100%
6Huber, M., Y.-C. Hsu, Y.-Y. Lee, and L. Lettry (2020) Direct and indirect effects of continuous treatments based on generalized propensity score weighting self0.87452100%
7Lee, Y.-Y (2018) Partial mean processes with generated regressors: Continuous treatment effects and nonseparable models self0.87452100%
8Hirano, K. and G. W. Imbens (2004) The propensity score with continuous treatments0.8434375%
9Farrell, M. H., T. Liang, and S. Misra (2021) Deep neural networks for estimation and inference0.64441100%
10Chernozhukov, V., J. C. Escanciano, H. Ichimura, W. K. Newey, and J.… (2022) Locally robust semiparametric estimation0.6443267%

Showing the top 10 of 43 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
1Lee Bounds with a Continuous Treatment in Sample Selection0.73733
22604.066430.73732
3Double Debiased Machine Learning Nonparametric Inference with Continuous Treatments0.40511
42306.055930.40511