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Inference for Matched Tuples and Fully Blocked Factorial Designs

Yuehao Bai, Jizhou Liu, Max Tabord-Meehan

arXiv 8 Jun 2022 · Econometrics · publishedQuantitative Economics (2024) · 6 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2206.04157 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper studies inference in randomized controlled trials with multiple treatments, where treatment status is determined according to a "matched tuples" design. Here, by a matched tuples design, we mean an experimental design where units are sampled i.i.d. from the population of interest, grouped into "homogeneous" blocks with cardinality equal to the number of treatments, and finally, within each block, each treatment is assigned exactly once uniformly at random. We first study estimation and inference for matched tuples designs in the general setting where the parameter of interest is a vector of linear contrasts over the collection of average potential outcomes for each treatment. Parameters of this form include standard average treatment effects used to compare one treatment relative to another, but also include parameters which may be of interest in the analysis of factorial designs. We first establish conditions under which a sample analogue estimator is asymptotically normal and construct a consistent estimator of its corresponding asymptotic variance. Combining these results establishes the asymptotic exactness of tests based on these estimators. In contrast, we show that, for two common testing procedures based on t-tests constructed from linear regressions, one test is generally conservative while the other generally invalid. We go on to apply our results to study the asymptotic properties of what we call "fully-blocked" 2^K factorial designs, which are simply matched tuples designs applied to a full factorial experiment. Leveraging our previous results, we establish that our estimator achieves a lower asymptotic variance under the fully-blocked design than that under any stratified factorial design which stratifies the experimental sample into a finite number of "large" strata. A simulation study and empirical application illustrate the practical relevance of our results.

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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
1Li, X., Ding, P. and Rubin, D. B (2020) Rerandomization in $2^K$ factorial experiments1.00063100%
2Fafchamps, M., McKenzie, D., Quinn, S. and Woodruff, C (2014) Microenterprise growth and the flypaper effect: Evidence from a randomized experiment in ghana0.9619589%
3Dasgupta, T., Pillai, N. S. and Rubin, D. B (2015) Causal inference from $2^k$ factorial designs by using potential outcomes0.9507386%
4Branson, Z., Dasgupta, T. and Rubin, D. B (2016) Improving covariate balance in 2K factorial designs via rerandomization with an application to a New York City Department of Edu…0.9098475%
5Bai, Y., Romano, J. P. and Shaikh, A. M (2021) Inference in Experiments with Matched Pairs* self0.81426654%
6Wu, C. J. and Hamada, M. S (2011) Experiments: planning, analysis, and optimization, vol. 5520.81142100%
7Bai, Y (2022) Optimality of Matched-Pair Designs in Randomized Controlled Trials self0.7946450%
8de Chaisemartin, C. and Ramirez-Cuellar, J (2022) At what level should one cluster standard errors in paired and small-strata experiments?0.73732100%
9de Mel, S., McKenzie, D. and Woodruff, C (2013) The demand for, and consequences of, formalization among informal firms in sri lanka0.64422100%
10Athey, S. and Imbens, G. W (2017) The econometrics of randomized experiments0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 30 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 New Design-Based Variance Estimator for Finely Stratified Experiments1.00064
2Inference for Two-stage Experiments under Covariate-Adaptive Randomization0.85585
3Inference in Cluster Randomized Trials with Matched Pairs0.84344
4Inference in Experiments with Matched Pairs and Imperfect Compliance0.64422
5Partial Identification under Stratified Randomization0.58543
6On the Efficiency of Highly Stratified Experiments0.58533
7A Primer on the Analysis of Randomized Experiments and a Survey of some Recent Advances0.51121
8Optimal Stratification of Survey Experiments0.40511
9Revisiting the Analysis of Matched-Pair and Stratified Experiments in the Presence of Attrition0.40511
10Covariate Adjustment in Stratified Experiments0.40511