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Interpreting Event-Studies from Recent Difference-in-Differences Methods

Jonathan Roth

arXiv 22 Jan 2024 · Econometrics · 36 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2401.12309 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This note discusses the interpretation of event-study plots produced by recent difference-in-differences methods. I show that even when specialized to the case of non-staggered treatment timing, the default plots produced by software for three of the most popular recent methods (de Chaisemartin and D'Haultfoeuille, 2020; Callaway and SantAnna, 2021; Borusyak, Jaravel and Spiess, 2024) do not match those of traditional two-way fixed effects (TWFE) event-studies: the new methods may show a kink or jump at the time of treatment even when the TWFE event-study shows a straight line. This difference stems from the fact that the new methods construct the pre-treatment coefficients asymmetrically from the post-treatment coefficients. As a result, visual heuristics for analyzing TWFE event-study plots should not be immediately applied to those from these methods. I conclude with practical recommendations for constructing and interpreting event-study plots when using these methods.

Citation extraction

24
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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
1Rambachan, Ashesh and Roth, Jonathan (2023) A More Credible Approach to Parallel Trends self0.81142100%
2Liu, Ziyi (2025) Cohort-Anchored Robust Inference for Event-Study with Staggered Adoption0.64441100%
3de Chaisemartin, Clément and D'Haultfœuille, Xavier (2020) Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects0.64422100%
4Gardner, John (2021) Two-stage differences in differences0.64422100%
5Liu, Licheng and Wang, Ye and Xu, Yiqing (2024) A Practical Guide to Counterfactual Estimators for Causal Inference with Time-Series Cross-Sectional Data0.64422100%
6Roth, Jonathan (2022) Pre-test with Caution: Event-study Estimates After Testing for Parallel Trends self0.64422100%
7Sun, Liyang and Abraham, Sarah (2021) Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects0.64422100%
8Li, Zikai and Strezhnev, Anton (2025) Benchmarking parallel trends violations in regression imputation difference-in-differences0.5113233%
9Bilinski, Alyssa and Hatfield, Laura A (2018) Seeking evidence of absence: Reconsidering tests of model assumptions0.40511100%
10Borusyak, Kirill and Jaravel, Xavier and Spiess, Jann (2024) Revisiting Event-Study Designs: Robust and Efficient Estimation0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 24 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
1Design-Robust Event-Study Estimation under Staggered Adoption: Diagnostics, Sensitivity, and Orthogonalisation0.874112
2Cohort-Anchored Robust Inference for Event-Study with Staggered Adoption0.64422
3Causal Panel Analysis under Parallel Trends: Lessons from a Large Reanalysis Study0.40511
4Doubly Robust Uniform Confidence Bands for Group-Time Conditional Average Treatment Effects in Difference-in-Differences0.00021