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Learning about Treatment Effects in Panels under Unknown Interference

Shengbin Wei

arXiv 13 Aug 2026 · Econometrics

arXiv:2608.13466 · PDF · Extracted main text

Abstract

When comparison units may also respond to treatment, panel comparisons reflect both the treatment effect and spillovers. If the interference pattern is unknown, observed outcomes alone do not separate the two. I characterize what can nevertheless be learned from panel outcomes under general restrictions, without requiring an exposure mapping or prior classification of affected donors. The framework scales validity bounds for every convex donor weight by its fit before treatment and combines these bounds with prespecified restrictions tailored to the application. The validity bounds constrain the treatment effect relative to spillovers, while the additional restrictions determine its possible values. Together these restrictions yield a sharp identified set. When the additional restrictions have a finite linear representation, checking whether a proposed treatment effect is compatible with the model reduces exactly to asking whether a finite linear system has a solution. Bootstrap calibration tests this condition. Inverting these tests uniformly controls, in large samples, the probability of falsely excluding each compatible value. In an application to the Legal Arizona Workers Act, the resulting 95 percent inversion sets contain effects of both signs across all reported specifications, leaving the sign of the treatment effect unresolved.

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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
1Sarah Bohn, Magnus Lofstrom, and Steven Raphael (2007) Did the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act reduce the state's unauthorized immigrant population?0.93511382%
2Jesse Y. Hsu and Dylan S. Small (2013) Calibrating sensitivity analyses to observed covariates in observational studies0.92843100%
3Ashesh Rambachan and Jonathan Roth (2023) A more credible approach to parallel trends0.92843100%
4Leonard Goff and Eric Mbakop (2026) Inference on the Value of a Linear Program0.7639444%
5Alberto Abadie, Alexis Diamond, and Jens Hainmueller (2010) Synthetic control methods for comparative case studies: Estimating the effect of California's tobacco control program0.64422100%
6Dmitry Arkhangelsky, Susan Athey, David A. Hirshberg, Guido W. Imben… (2021) Synthetic difference-in-differences0.64422100%
7Abhijit Banerjee, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, and Matthew O… (2013) The diffusion of microfinance0.64422100%
8Jing Cai, Alain de Janvry, and Elisabeth Sadoulet (2015) Social networks and the decision to insure0.64422100%
9U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division (2000) Intercensal estimates of the resident population by single year of age and sex for states and the United States: April 1, 2000 t…0.5112250%
10Yiqi Liu (2025) Synthetic parallel trends0.51121100%

Showing the top 10 of 83 scored citations.