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Flexible Covariate Adjustments in Regression Discontinuity Designs

Claudia Noack, Tomasz Olma, Christoph Rothe

arXiv 16 Jul 2021 · Econometrics · 3 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2107.07942 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

Empirical regression discontinuity (RD) studies often include covariates in their specifications to increase the precision of their estimates. In this paper, we propose a novel class of estimators that use such covariate information more efficiently than existing methods and can accommodate many covariates. Our estimators are simple to implement and involve running a standard RD analysis after subtracting a function of the covariates from the original outcome variable. We characterize the function of the covariates that minimizes the asymptotic variance of these estimators. We also show that the conventional RD framework gives rise to a special robustness property which implies that the optimal adjustment function can be estimated flexibly via modern machine learning techniques without affecting the first-order properties of the final RD estimator. We demonstrate our methods' scope for efficiency improvements by reanalyzing data from a large number of recently published empirical studies.

Citation extraction

41
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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
1Calonico, S., M. D. Cattaneo, M. H. Farrell, and R. Titiunik (2019) Regression Discontinuity Designs Using Covariates1.00094100%
2Chernozhukov, V., D. Chetverikov, M. Demirer, E. Duflo, C. Hansen, W… (2018) Double/debiased machine learning for treatment and structural parameters0.97112592%
3Hahn, J., P. Todd, and W. Van der Klaauw (2001) Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design0.92843100%
4Calonico, S., M. D. Cattaneo, and R. Titiunik (2014) Robust nonparametric confidence intervals for regression-discontinuity designs0.9098575%
5Armstrong, T. B. and M. Kolesár (2020) Simple and honest confidence intervals in nonparametric regression0.8746567%
6Imbens, G. and S. Wager (2019) Optimized regression discontinuity designs0.8746467%
7Imbens, G. and K. Kalyanaraman (2012) Optimal bandwidth choice for the regression discontinuity estimator0.84333100%
8Wager, S., W. Du, J. Taylor, and R. J. Tibshirani (2016) High-dimensional regression adjustments in randomized experiments0.81142100%
9Krei, A. and C. Rothe (2023) Inference in regression discontinuity designs with high-dimensional covariates0.73732100%
10Belloni, A., V. Chernozhukov, I. Fernández-Val, and C. Hansen (2017) Program Evaluation and Causal Inference With High-Dimensional Data0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 41 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
1Empirical Likelihood Covariate Adjustment for Regression Discontinuity Designs This version: April 22, 20240.874152
2Double Debiased Machine Learning Nonparametric Inference with Continuous Treatments0.40511
32009.075510.40511
4Inference in Regression Discontinuity Designs with High-Dimensional CovariatesFirst version: October 26, 2021. This version: . The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the European Research Council (ERC) through grant SH1-77202. Computations for this work were done in part using resources of the Leipzig University Computing Centre. Author contact information: Alexander Kreiß, Mathematical Institute, Leipzig University and Department of Statistics, London School of Economics0.40511
5Local-Polynomial Estimation for Multivariate Regression Discontinuity Designs0.40511
6On the Asymptotic Properties of Debiased Machine Learning Estimators0.40511
7A Unifying Framework for Robust and Efficient Inference with Unstructured Data0.40511
8Extrapolation in Regression Discontinuity Design Using Comonotonicity0.40511
9Placebo Discontinuity Design0.40511
10Identification and Estimation in Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity Designs with Covariates0.40511