EconBase
← All papers

Using Pre-Trends for Inference in Difference-in-Differences

Clément de Chaisemartin

arXiv 23 Jul 2026 · Econometrics

arXiv:2607.21312 · PDF · Extracted main text

Abstract

Difference-in-differences (DID) are sometimes estimated with many pre-treatment periods. In such settings, the observed pre-treatment outcome evolutions provide direct information about the magnitude of shocks that could also occur after treatment. This paper proposes a simple inference procedure that uses those pre-trends as the reference distribution for the post-treatment DID. The procedure is closely related to existing conformal inference procedures, but its DID-specific predictor leads to a distinct identifying restriction. Existing procedures assume parallel trends, while this paper's procedure does not require parallel trends.

Citation extraction

13
references
21
in-text mentions
13
distinct cited
0
self-citations
2,822
main-text words

appendix boundary found by none_found · 100% 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., Wüthrich, K., and Zhu, Y (2021) An exact and robust conformal inference method for counterfactual and synthetic controls0.69361100%
2Chernozhukov, V., Wüthrich, K., and Zhu, Y (2018) Exact and robust conformal inference methods for predictive machine learning with dependent data0.64422100%
3Vovk, V., Gammerman, A., and Shafer, G (2005) Algorithmic Learning in a Random World0.64422100%
4Rambachan, A., and Roth, J (2023) A more credible approach to parallel trends0.51121100%
5Andrews, D.\ W.\ K (2003) End-of-sample instability tests0.40511100%
6Bilinski, A., and Hatfield, L.\ A (2018) Nothing to see here? Non-inferiority approaches to parallel trends and other model assumptions0.40511100%
7Conley, T.\ G., and Taber, C.\ R (2011) difference in differences0.40511100%
8Dette, H., and Schumann, M (2024) Testing for equivalence of pre-trends in difference-in-differences estimation0.40511100%
9Ferman, B., and Pinto, C (2019) Inference in differences-in-differences with few treated groups and heteroskedasticity0.40511100%
10Lei, L., and Candès, E.\ J (2021) Conformal inference of counterfactuals and individual treatment effects0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 13 scored citations.