EconBase
← All papers

On Efficient Estimation of Distributional Treatment Effects under Covariate-Adaptive Randomization

Undral Byambadalai, Tomu Hirata, Tatsushi Oka, Shota Yasui

arXiv 6 Jun 2025 · Econometrics · 2 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2506.05945 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper focuses on the estimation of distributional treatment effects in randomized experiments that use covariate-adaptive randomization (CAR). These include designs such as Efron's biased-coin design and stratified block randomization, where participants are first grouped into strata based on baseline covariates and assigned treatments within each stratum to ensure balance across groups. In practice, datasets often contain additional covariates beyond the strata indicators. We propose a flexible distribution regression framework that leverages off-the-shelf machine learning methods to incorporate these additional covariates, enhancing the precision of distributional treatment effect estimates. We establish the asymptotic distribution of the proposed estimator and introduce a valid inference procedure. Furthermore, we derive the semiparametric efficiency bound for distributional treatment effects under CAR and demonstrate that our regression-adjusted estimator attains this bound. Simulation studies and empirical analyses of microcredit programs highlight the practical advantages of our method.

Citation extraction

89
references
120
in-text mentions
89
distinct cited
5
self-citations
6,007
main-text words

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
1Chernozhukov, V., Chetverikov, D., Demirer, M., Duflo, E., Hansen, C… (2018) Double/debiased machine learning for treatment and structural parameters1.00053100%
2Imbens, G. W. and Rubin, D. B (2015) Causal inference in statistics, social, and biomedical sciences0.73732100%
3Jiang, L., Phillips, P. C., Tao, Y., and Zhang, Y (2023) Regression-adjusted estimation of quantile treatment effects under covariate-adaptive randomizations0.6597329%
4Attanasio, O., Augsburg, B., De Haas, R., Fitzsimons, E., and Harmga… (2015) The impacts of microfinance: Evidence from joint-liability lending in mongolia0.6443267%
5Chernozhukov, V., Escanciano, J. C., Ichimura, H., Newey, W. K., and… (2022) Locally robust semiparametric estimation0.64422100%
6Cytrynbaum, M (2024) Covariate adjustment in stratified experiments0.64422100%
7Freedman, D. A (2008) On regression adjustments to experimental data0.64422100%
8Heckman, J. J., Smith, J., and Clements, N (1997) Making the most out of programme evaluations and social experiments: Accounting for heterogeneity in programme impacts0.64422100%
9Lin, W (2013) Agnostic notes on regression adjustments to experimental data: Reexamining freedman’s critique0.64422100%
10Näf, J. and Susmann, H (2024) Causal-drf: Conditional kernel treatment effect estimation using distributional random forest0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 89 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
1Efficient and Scalable Estimation of Distributional Treatment Effects with Multi-Task Neural Networks0.40511
2Beyond the Average: Distributional Causal Inference under Imperfect Compliance0.40511
3Modeling Covariate Transition for Efficient Estimation of Longitudinal Treatment Effects in Randomized Experiments0.40511