Augustine Denteh, Désiré Kédagni
arXiv 25 Jul 2022 · Econometrics · 4 citations (OpenAlex)
arXiv:2207.11890 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text
The difference-in-differences (DID) design is one of the most popular methods used in empirical economics research. However, there is almost no work examining what the DID method identifies in the presence of a misclassified treatment variable. This paper studies the identification of treatment effects in DID designs when the treatment is misclassified. Misclassification arises in various ways, including when the timing of a policy intervention is ambiguous or when researchers need to infer treatment from auxiliary data. We show that the DID estimand is biased and recovers a weighted average of the average treatment effects on the treated (ATT) in two subpopulations -- the correctly classified and misclassified groups. In some cases, the DID estimand may yield the wrong sign and is otherwise attenuated. We provide bounds on the ATT when the researcher has access to information on the extent of misclassification in the data. We demonstrate our theoretical results using simulations and provide two empirical applications to guide researchers in performing sensitivity analysis using our proposed methods.
appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 61% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.
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.
| Reference | Intensity | Mentions | Sections | Main text | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nguimkeu, Pierre and Denteh, Augustine and Tchernis, Rusty (2019) On the estimation of treatment effects with endogenous misreporting self | 0.928 | 4 | 3 | 100% |
| 2 | Kresch, Evan Plous (2020) The buck stops where? federalism, uncertainty, and investment in the brazilian water and sanitation sector | 0.874 | 7 | 2 | 100% |
| 3 | Miller, S (2012) The effect of insurance on emergency room visits: An analysis of the 2006 Massachusetts health reform | 0.737 | 3 | 2 | 100% |
| 4 | Galasso, Alberto and Luo, Hong (2022) When does product liability risk chill innovation? Evidence from medical implants | 0.737 | 3 | 2 | 100% |
| 5 | Bindler, Anna and Hjalmarsson, Randi (2018) How Punishment Severity Affects Jury Verdicts: Evidence from Two Natural Experiments | 0.693 | 9 | 3 | 33% |
| 6 | Hausman, J. A. and J. Abrevaya and F. M. Scott-Morton (1998) Misclassification of the dependent variable in a discrete-response setting | 0.644 | 3 | 2 | 67% |
| 7 | Santiago Acerenza and Kyunghoon Ban and Désiré Kédagni (2024) Local Average and Marginal Treatment Effects with a Misclassified Treatment self | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 8 | Draca, Mirko and Machin, Stephen and Van Reenen, John (2011) Minimum wages and firm profitability | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 9 | Groen, Jeffrey A and Polivka, Anne E (2008) The effect of Hurricane Katrina on the labor market outcomes of evacuees | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 10 | Negi, Akanksha and Negi, Digvijay S (2025) Difference-in-Differences With a Misclassified Treatment | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
Showing the top 10 of 34 scored citations.
arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.
| Citing paper | Intensity | Mentions | Sections | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Staggered Adoption DiD Designs with Misclassification and Anticipation | 0.737 | 3 | 2 |
| 2 | 2106.00536 | 0.405 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | Robust difference-in-differences models | 0.405 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | Estimating Program Participation with Partial Validation | 0.405 | 1 | 1 |