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Asymptotic Properties of the Distributional Synthetic Controls

Lu Zhang, Xiaomeng Zhang, Xinyu Zhang

arXiv 2 May 2024 · Econometrics

arXiv:2405.00953 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

As an alternative to synthetic control, the distributional Synthetic Control (DSC) proposed by Gunsilius (2023) provides estimates for quantile treatment effect and thus enabling researchers to comprehensively understand the impact of interventions in causal inference. But the asymptotic properties of DSC have not been built. In this paper, we first establish the DSC estimator's asymptotic optimality in the essence that the treatment effect estimator given by DSC achieves the lowest possible squared prediction error among all potential estimators from averaging quantiles of control units. We then establish the convergence rate of the DSC weights. A significant aspect of our research is that we find the DSC synthesis forms an optimal weighted average, particularly in situations where it is impractical to perfectly fit the treated unit's quantiles through the weighted average of the control units' quantiles. Simulation results verify our theoretical insights.

Citation extraction

23
references
53
in-text mentions
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distinct cited
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8,968
main-text words

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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
1Gunsilius, Florian F (2023) Distributional synthetic controls1.000143100%
2Abadie, Alberto and Diamond, Alexis and Hainmueller, Jens (2010) Synthetic control methods for comparative case studies: Estimating the effect of California's tobacco control program1.00053100%
3Abadie, Alberto and Gardeazabal, Javier (2003) The economic costs of conflict: A case study of the Basque Country0.73732100%
4Zhang, Xiaomeng and Wang, Wendun and Zhang, Xinyu (2022) Asymptotic Properties of the Synthetic Control Method self0.73732100%
5Abadie, Alberto (2021) Using synthetic controls: Feasibility, data requirements, and methodological aspects0.51121100%
6Card, David and Krueger, Alan B (1994) Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania0.51121100%
7Dube, Arindrajit (2019) Minimum Wages and the Distribution of Family Incomes0.51121100%
8Ferman, Bruno (2021) On the properties of the synthetic control estimator with many periods and many controls0.51121100%
9Neumark, David and Wascher, William (2000) Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Comment0.51121100%
10Arkhangelsky, Dmitry and Athey, Susan and Hirshberg, David A and Imb… (2021) Synthetic difference-in-differences0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 23 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
1Recovering Counterfactual Distributions via Wasserstein GANs0.40511