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First as Tragedy? Second as What? Estimating Dynamic Effects of Recurrent Events

Agnes Norris Keiller

arXiv 24 Sep 2026 · Econometrics

arXiv:2609.30007 · PDF · Extracted main text

Abstract

I study treatment effect estimation when treatment events have persistent effects and can be experienced more than once. Natural disasters, job loss and health shocks are examples of such treatments. I show that the effect of a total treatment trajectory can be recovered under assumptions similar to those commonly invoked in single-event settings using suitably flexible TWFE models. Decomposing the total trajectory effect into portions attributable to distinct event occurrences, however, requires further assumptions. I propose an assumption similar to conditional parallel trends, imposing it on the growth of event-specific effects rather than on untreated outcomes. Combined with a linear-in-parameters model of effect growth, this assumption enables a sequential imputation estimator that consistently estimates the dynamic effects of each event occurrence and that can accommodate heterogeneity in effects according to observable event attributes, such as intensity. I demonstrate that several intuitive TWFE models fail to recover interpretable treatment effect parameters in the multi-event setting and illustrate the sequential imputation estimator's favourable performance using Monte Carlo simulations.

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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
1Wooldridge, Jeffrey M (2025) Two-Way Fixed Effects, the Two-Way Mundlak Regression, and Difference-in-Differences Estimators1.000153100%
2De Chaisemartin, Clément and D'Haultfœuille, Xavier Difference-in-Differences Estimators of Intertemporal Treatment Effects1.000103100%
3Borusyak, Kirill and Jaravel, Xavier and Spiess, Jann Revisiting Event-Study Designs: Robust and Efficient Estimation1.00064100%
4Callaway, Brantly and Sant'Anna, Pedro H.C (2021) Difference-in-Differences with Multiple Time Periods1.00063100%
5Sun, Liyang and Abraham, Sarah (2021) Estimating Dynamic Treatment Effects in Event Studies with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects0.87452100%
6Deryugina, Tatyana The Fiscal Cost of Hurricanes: Disaster Aid versus Social Insurance0.73732100%
7Hsiang, Solomon M. and Jina, Amir S (2014) The Causal Effect of Environmental Catastrophe on Long-Run Economic Growth: Evidence from 6,700 Cyclones0.64422100%
8Krolikowski, Pawel Choosing a Control Group for Displaced Workers0.64422100%
9Patel, Dev (2024) Floods0.64422100%
10Sandler, Danielle H. and Sandler, Ryan (2014) Multiple Event Studies in Public Finance and Labor Economics: A Simulation Study with Applications0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 23 scored citations.