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Regression Adjustment for Estimating Distributional Treatment Effects in Randomized Controlled Trials

Tatsushi Oka, Shota Yasui, Yuta Hayakawa, Undral Byambadalai

arXiv 19 Jul 2024 · Econometrics · publishedEconometric Reviews (2025) · 3 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2407.14074 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

In this paper, we address the issue of estimating and inferring distributional treatment effects in randomized experiments. The distributional treatment effect provides a more comprehensive understanding of treatment heterogeneity compared to average treatment effects. We propose a regression adjustment method that utilizes distributional regression and pre-treatment information, establishing theoretical efficiency gains without imposing restrictive distributional assumptions. We develop a practical inferential framework and demonstrate its advantages through extensive simulations. Analyzing water conservation policies, our method reveals that behavioral nudges systematically shift consumption from high to moderate levels. Examining health insurance coverage, we show the treatment reduces the probability of zero doctor visits by 6.6 percentage points while increasing the likelihood of 3-6 visits. In both applications, our regression adjustment method substantially improves precision and identifies treatment effects that were statistically insignificant under conventional approaches.

Citation extraction

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appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 47% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

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
1Negi, A. and J. M. Wooldridge (2020) Robust and efficient estimation of potential outcome means under random assignment0.73732100%
2Neyman, J (1923) On the application of probability theory to agricultural experiments. essay on principles. section 9. trans. dorota m. dabrowska…0.64422100%
3Heckman, J. J., J. Smith, and N. Clements (1997) Making the most out of programme evaluations and social experiments: Accounting for heterogeneity in programme impacts0.64422100%
4List, J. A., I. Muir, and G. K. Sun (2022) Using machine learning for efficient flexible regression adjustment in economic experiments0.64422100%
5Negi, A. and J. M. Wooldridge (2021) Revisiting regression adjustment in experiments with heterogeneous treatment effects0.64422100%
6Jiang, L., P. C. Phillips, Y. Tao, and Y. Zhang (2023) Regression-adjusted estimation of quantile treatment effects under covariate-adaptive randomizations0.58531100%
7McCullagh, P. and J. Nelder (1989) Binary data0.5112250%
8Athey, S. and G. Imbens (2016) Recursive partitioning for heterogeneous causal effects0.51121100%
9Wager, S. and S. Athey (2018) Estimation and inference of heterogeneous treatment effects using random forests0.51121100%
10Bitler, M. P., J. B. Gelbach, and H. W. Hoynes (2006) What mean impacts miss: Distributional effects of welfare reform experiments0.51121100%

Showing the top 10 of 68 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
1Estimating Distributional Treatment Effects in Randomized Experiments: Machine Learning for Variance Reduction0.40511
2On Efficient Estimation of Distributional Treatment Effects under Covariate-Adaptive Randomization0.40511
3Efficient and Scalable Estimation of Distributional Treatment Effects with Multi-Task Neural Networks0.40511
4Beyond the Average: Distributional Causal Inference under Imperfect Compliance0.40511
5Modeling Covariate Transition for Efficient Estimation of Longitudinal Treatment Effects in Randomized Experiments0.40511