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A Bracketing Relationship for Long-Term Policy Evaluation with Combined Experimental and Observational Data

Yechan Park, Yuya Sasaki

arXiv 22 Jan 2024 · Econometrics · 2 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2401.12050 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

Combining short-term experimental data with observational data enables credible long-term policy evaluation. The literature offers two key but non-nested assumptions, namely the latent unconfoundedness (LU; Athey et al., 2020) and equi-confounding bias (ECB; Ghassami et al., 2022) conditions, to correct observational selection. Committing to the wrong assumption leads to biased estimation. To mitigate such risks, we provide a novel bracketing relationship (cf. Angrist and Pischke, 2009) repurposed for the setting with data combination: the LU-based estimand and the ECB-based estimand serve as the lower and upper bounds, respectively, with the true causal effect lying in between if either assumption holds. For researchers further seeking point estimates, our Lalonde-style exercise suggests the conservatively more robust LU-based lower bounds align closely with the hold-out experimental estimates for educational policy evaluation. We investigate the economic substantives of these findings through the lens of a nonparametric class of selection mechanisms and sensitivity analysis. We uncover as key the sub-martingale property and sufficient-statistics role (Chetty, 2009) of the potential outcomes of student test scores (Chetty et al., 2011, 2014).

Citation extraction

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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
1Ghanem, D., Sant'Anna, P. H., and Wüthrich, K (2022) Selection and parallel trends1.000135100%
2Ding, P. and Li, F (2019) A bracketing relationship between difference-in-differences and lagged-dependent-variable adjustment1.00063100%
3Angrist, J. D. and Pischke, J.-S (2009) Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion0.98017694%
4LaLonde, R. J (1986) Evaluating the econometric evaluations of training programs with experimental data0.97715793%
5Chetty, R (2009) Sufficient statistics for welfare analysis: A bridge between structural and reduced-form methods0.9285480%
6Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., Hilger, N., Saez, E., Schanzenbach, D.… (2011) How does your kindergarten classroom affect your earnings? evidence from project star0.92844100%
7Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., and Rockoff, J. E (2014) Measuring the impacts of teachers i: Evaluating bias in teacher value-added estimates0.92844100%
8Ghassami, A., Shpitser, I., and Tchetgen, E. T (2022) Combining experimental and observational data for identification of long-term causal effects0.90215773%
9Ashenfelter, O. and Card, D (1985) Using the longitudinal structure of earnings to estimate the effect of training programs0.89718372%
10Roy, A. D (1951) Some thoughts on the distribution of earnings0.88810370%

Showing the top 10 of 60 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
1Identification of Long-Term Treatment Effects via Temporal Links, Observational, and Experimental Data0.92843
2The Experimental Selection Correction Estimator: Using Experiments to Remove Biases in Observational Estimates0.40511