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...

In this paper, we describe a computational implementation of the Synthetic difference-in-differences (SDID) estimator of Arkhangelsky et al. (2021) for Stata. Synthetic difference-in-differences can be used in a wide class of circumstances where treatment effects on some particular policy or...

This paper investigates the impact of four key economic variables on an expert firm’s incentive to defraud its customers in a credence goods market: the level of competition, the expert firm’s financial situation, its competence, and its reputational concerns. We use and complement the...

The performance of the Philippine automotive industry has steadily improved after the Asian crisis. However, relative to the performance of the automotive industry in other countries, the automotive sector in the country has languished. To understand the challenges being faced by the automotive...

The development of the Philippine automotive parts and components sector is critical to the automotive assembly industry. The availability of competitive parts and components that are locally manufactured can significantly contribute to boost the competitiveness of the assembly sector. Given the...

Globalisation and the ageing of the work force represent a dual challenge for enterprises. The first exerts pressure on production costs in order to stay competitive, the second raises production costs as the productivity of workers tends to decline after a certain age, particularly for...

With more than ten thousand casualties, the 2014 Ukrainian war between pro-Russian separatists and the government in the Donbass region, Ukraine's productive core, has taken a severe toll on the country. Using cross-country panel data over the period 1995-2017, this paper quantifies the...

This paper investigates whether immigration shocks have a causal effect on native fertility patterns. It uses a natural experiment, exploiting the large, unexpected and localised immigration of Cuban nationals to the Miami area in the USA in 1980 to examine the fertility consequences for...

We document day care enrolment gaps by family background for children under 3 in Germany. Research demonstrates that children of less-educated or foreign-born parents benefit most from day care, making it important to understand the causes of such enrolment gaps. Using a unique data set that...