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Doubly Robust Estimation of Treatment Effects in Staggered Difference-in-Differences with Time-Varying Covariates

Yuhao Deng, Le Kang

arXiv 4 Mar 2026 · Statistics — Methodology

arXiv:2603.04080 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

The difference-in-differences (DiD) design is a quasi-experimental method for estimating treatment effects. In staggered DiD with multiple treatment groups and periods, estimation based on the two-way fixed effects model yields negative weights when averaging heterogeneous group-period treatment effects into an overall effect. To address this issue, we first define group-period average treatment effects on the treated (ATT), and then define groupwise, periodwise, dynamic, and overall ATTs nonparametrically, so that the estimands are model-free. We propose doubly robust estimators for these types of ATTs in the form of augmented inverse variance weighting (AIVW). The proposed framework allows time-varying covariates that partially explain the time trends in outcomes. Even if part of the working models is misspecified, the proposed estimators still consistently estimate the parameter of interest. The asymptotic variance can be explicitly computed from influence functions. Under a homoskedastic working model, the AIVW estimator is simplified to an augmented inverse probability weighting (AIPW) estimator. We demonstrate the desirable properties of the proposed estimators through simulation and an application that compares the effects of a parallel admission mechanism with immediate admission on the China National College Entrance Examination.

Citation extraction

36
references
49
in-text mentions
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distinct cited
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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
1Callaway, Brantly and Sant'Anna, Pedro HC (2021) Difference-in-differences with multiple time periods0.87452100%
2Caetano, Carolina and Callaway, Brantly (2024) Difference-in-Differences with Time-Varying Covariates in the Parallel Trends Assumption0.64422100%
3Chen, Xiaohong and Sant'Anna, Pedro HC and Xie, Haitian (2025) Efficient Difference-in-Differences and Event Study Estimators0.64422100%
4Sun, Liyang and Abraham, Sarah (2021) Estimating dynamic treatment effects in event studies with heterogeneous treatment effects0.64422100%
5Abdulkadiro glu, Atila and Sönmez, Tayfun (2003) School choice: A mechanism design approach0.51121100%
6Athey, Susan and Imbens, Guido W (2006) Identification and inference in nonlinear difference-in-differences models0.51121100%
7Athey, Susan and Imbens, Guido W (2022) Design-based analysis in difference-in-differences settings with staggered adoption0.51121100%
8De Chaisemartin, Clément and d’Haultfoeuille, Xavier (2020) Two-way fixed effects estimators with heterogeneous treatment effects0.51121100%
9Goodman-Bacon, Andrew (2021) Difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing0.51121100%
10Kang, Le and Ha, Wei and Song, Yang and Zhou, Sen (2020) Matching mechanisms, justified envy, and college admissions outcomes self0.51121100%

Showing the top 10 of 36 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
1Causal Graphs for Conditional Parallel Trends0.00011