This paper uses Wald's concept of the risk of a statistical decision function to address the question: How should sample data on treatment response be used to guide treatment choices in a heterogeneous population? Statistical treatment rules (STRs) are statistical decision functions that map...

An important practical objective of empirical studies of treatment response is to provide decision makers with information useful in choosing treatments. Often the decision maker is a planner who must choose treatments for the members of a heterogeneous population; for example, a physician may...

A common concern of evaluation studies is to learn the distribution of outcomes when a specified treatment policy or assignment rule, determines the treatment received by each member of a specified population. Recent studies have emphasized evaluation of policies providing the same treatment to...

Econometric analyses of treatment response commonly use instrumental variable (IV) assumptions to identify treatment effects. Yet the credibility of IV assumptions is often a matter of considerable disagreement, with much debate about whether some covariate is or is not a "valid instrument" in...