A new bandwidth selection method that uses different bandwidths for the local linear regression estimators on the left and the right of the cut-off point is proposed for the sharp regression discontinuity design estimator of the average treatment effect at the cut-off point. The asymptotic mean...

We analyze the properties of the Synthetic Control (SC) and related estimators when the pre-treatment fit is imperfect. In this framework, we show that these estimators are generally biased if treatment assignment is correlated with unobserved confounders, even when the number of pre-treatment...

Instrumental variables (IVs) are commonly used to estimate the effects of some treatments. A valid IV should be as good as randomly assigned, it should not have a direct effect on the outcome, and it should not induce any unit to forgo treatment. This last condition, the so-called monotonicity...

We construct a peer effects model where mean expenditures of consumers in one's peer group affect utility through perceived consumption needs. We provide a novel method for obtaining identification in social interactions models like ours, using ordinary survey data, where very few members of...

We develop a new permutation test for inference on a subvector of coefficients in linear models. The test is exact when the regressors and the error terms are independent. Then we show that the test is asymptotically of correct level, consistent, and has power against local alternatives when the...

This paper considers estimation and inference for heterogeneous counterfactual effects with high-dimensional data. We propose a novel robust score for debiased estimation of the unconditional quantile regression (Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2009)) as a measure of heterogeneous counterfactual...

In this paper, we investigate what can be learned about average counterfactual outcomes as well as average treatment effects when it is assumed that treatment response functions are smooth. We obtain a set of new partial identification results for both the average treatment response and the...

Social interactions are widely recognized to play an important role in smoking initiation among adolescents. In this paper, we hypothesize that emotionally stable, conscientious individuals are better able to resist peer pressure in the uptake of smoking. We exploit detailed friendship...

We use elections data in which a large number of ties in vote counts between candidates are resolved via a lottery to study the personal incumbency advantage. We benchmark non-experimental regression discontinuity design (RDD) estimates against the estimate produced by this experiment that takes...

This paper studies the identifying power of an instrumental variable in the nonparametric heterogeneous treatment effect framework when a binary treatment is mismeasured and endogenous. Using a binary instrumental variable, I characterize the sharp identified set for the local average treatment...