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An Optimal Transport Approach to Estimating Causal Effects via Nonlinear Difference-in-Differences

William Torous, Florian Gunsilius, Philippe Rigollet

arXiv 12 Aug 2021 · Statistics — Methodology · publishedJournal of Causal Inference (2024) · 8 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2108.05858 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

We propose a nonlinear difference-in-differences method to estimate multivariate counterfactual distributions in classical treatment and control study designs with observational data. Our approach sheds a new light on existing approaches like the changes-in-changes and the classical semiparametric difference-in-differences estimator and generalizes them to settings with multivariate heterogeneity in the outcomes. The main benefit of this extension is that it allows for arbitrary dependence and heterogeneity in the joint outcomes. We demonstrate its utility both on synthetic and real data. In particular, we revisit the classical Card & Krueger dataset, examining the effect of a minimum wage increase on employment in fast food restaurants; a reanalysis with our method reveals that restaurants tend to substitute full-time with part-time labor after a minimum wage increase at a faster pace. A previous version of this work was entitled "An optimal transport approach to causal inference.

Citation extraction

82
references
123
in-text mentions
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distinct cited
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self-citations
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main-text words

appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 68% 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
1Susan Athey and Guido W Imbens (2006) Identification and inference in nonlinear difference-in-differences models1.000164100%
2David Card and Alan B Krueger (1994) Minimum wages and employment: A case study of the fast-food industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania0.73732100%
3David Neumark and William Wascher (2000) Minimum wages and employment: A case study of the fast-food industry in New jersey and Pennsylvania: Comment0.69351100%
4Alberto Abadie (2005) Semiparametric difference-in-differences estimators0.64441100%
5Jonathan Roth and Pedro HC Sant'Anna (2020) When is parallel trends sensitive to functional form?0.64422100%
6Tudor Manole and Jonathan Niles-Weed (2021) Sharp Convergence Rates for Empirical Optimal Transport with Smooth Costs0.5112250%
7Gabriel Peyré and Marco Cuturi (2019) Computational optimal transport0.5112250%
8Ralph Tyrell Rockafellar (1997) Convex analysis0.5112250%
9Yann Brenier (1991) Polar factorization and monotone rearrangement of vector-valued functions0.51121100%
10Victor Chernozhukov, Alfred Galichon, Marc Henry, and Brendan Pass (2021) Identification of hedonic equilibrium and nonseparable simultaneous equations0.51121100%

Showing the top 10 of 82 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
1An econometrician's guide to optimal transport0.51121
2A Test for Treatment Heterogeneity under a Distributional Difference-in-Difference Framework0.51121
3Group-Heterogeneous Changes-in-Changes and Distributional Synthetic Controls0.40511
4Semiparametric Triple Difference Estimators0.40511
5On a Debiased and Semiparametric Efficient Changes-in-Changes Estimator0.40511
6Generalized Optimal Transport0.40511
7Inference in partially identified moment models via regularized optimal transport0.40511
8IV regression with distribution-valued outcomes0.40511