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Generic Covariate Adjustment for Regression Discontinuity Designs

Jun Ma, Yuya Sasaki, Zhengfei Yu

arXiv 24 Sep 2026 · Econometrics

arXiv:2609.29249 · PDF · Extracted main text

Abstract

It is standard practice to include covariates in regression discontinuity designs (RDDs) and regression kink designs (RKDs), but the theoretical justification for doing so does not generally extend beyond linear estimands. This paper proposes a novel entropy balancing reweighting approach for covariate adjustment within a general framework of RDDs and RKDs. While conventional regression-based covariate adjustment methods generally fail to deliver consistent estimation for nonlinear estimands such as quantile treatment effects, our reweighting approach achieves consistency while improving efficiency. Moreover, even in settings where the regression-based covariate adjustment method already improves efficiency, our approach can deliver additional efficiency gains. Simulation studies corroborate these theoretical findings. We present an empirical application in which our covariate adjustment yields statistically significant results that would not be obtained without covariate adjustment.

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41
references
114
in-text mentions
41
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
1van der Vaart, A. W (1998) Asymptotic Statistics1.000105100%
2Qu, Zhongjun and Yoon, Jungmo (2019) Uniform Inference on Quantile Effects under Sharp Regression Discontinuity Designs1.000103100%
3Dong, Yingying and Lewbel, Arthur (2015) Identifying the Effect of Changing the Policy Threshold in Regression Discontinuity Models0.92843100%
4Chen, Xiaohui and Kato, Kengo (2020) Jackknife Multiplier Bootstrap: Finite Sample Approximations to the U-Process Supremum with Applications0.87492100%
5Chernozhukov, Victor and Chetverikov, Denis and Kato, Kengo (2014) Gaussian Approximation of Suprema of Empirical Processes0.87492100%
6Card, David and Lee, David S. and Pei, Zhuan and Weber, Andrea (2015) Inference on Causal Effects in a Generalized Regression Kink Design0.87452100%
7Hainmueller, Jens (2012) Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies0.87452100%
8Hahn, Jinyong and Todd, Petra and Van der Klaauw, Wilbert (2001) Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression-Discontinuity Design0.84333100%
9van der Vaart, A. W. and Wellner, Jon A (1996) Weak Convergence and Empirical Processes: With Applications to Statistics0.81142100%
10Cattaneo, Matias D. and Idrobo, Nicolás and Titiunik, Rocío (2019) A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs: Foundations0.73732100%

Showing the top 10 of 41 scored citations.