We study semiparametric two-step estimators which have the same structure as parametric doubly robust estimators in their second step, but retain a fully nonparametric specification in the first step. Such estimators exist in many economic applications, including a wide range of missing data and...

In this paper we evaluate the premise from the recent literature on Monte Carlo studies that an empirically motivated simulation exercise is informative about the actual ranking of various estimators when applied to a particular problem. We consider two alternative designs and provide an...

We highlight the importance of randomisation bias, a situation where the process of participation in a social experiment has been affected by randomisation per se. We illustrate how this has happened in the case of the UK Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) experiment, in which over one...

This paper presents some selective aspects of standard econometric methods and of new developments in econometrics that are important for applications with microeconomic data. The range includes variance estimators, measurement of outliers, problems of partially identified parameters, nonlinear...

The 'Swedish model' of active labour market programmes is investigated in relation to some crucial institutional features with two aims: examining how successful it has been in the context of the high unemployment atypically experienced by Sweden in the 1990s and trying to derive some general...

Based on local variations in vocational rehabilitation (VR) priorities, we examine the impacts of alternative VR programs on short- and long-term labor market outcomes for temporary disability insurance (TDI) claimants in Norway. The analysis builds on rich and detailed administrative registers...

This paper investigates the impact of the public smoking ban which came into effect in Italy on January 2005 on individual smoking behaviour. Current empirical evidence supports the existence of a negative effect of the Italian ban on smoking prevalence and consumption in the general population....

This study investigates the impact of R&D subsidies on R&D investment during the past financial crisis. We conduct a treatment effects analysis and show that R&D subsidies increased R&D spending among subsidized small and medium sized firms in Germany during the crisis years. In the first crisis...

In this paper we study doubly robust estimators of various average treatment effects under unconfoundedness. We unify and extend much of the recent literature by providing a very general identification result which covers binary and multi-valued treatments; unnormalized and normalized weighting;...

This paper develops and estimates a model with multiple schooling choices that identifies the causal effect of different levels of schooling on health, health-related behaviors, and labor market outcomes. We develop an approach that is a halfway house between a reduced form treatment effect...