Iterating a regression discontinuity design, i trace branch growth before and after the reform. Regression discontinuity designs in economics, journal of economic literature, american economic. The solid line is the nonparametric best fit 95% confidence interval is shaded. Regression discontinuity rd designs are increasingly used by researchers to obtain unbiased estimates of the effects of educationrelated interventions. This presentation focused on the theory, design, and implementation of regression discontinuity rdd. Theory and applications advances in econometrics, volume 38, ed. Recent perspectives on the regression discontinuity design. Regression discontinuity designs in economics assigned. In statistics, econometrics, political science, epidemiology, and related disciplines, a regression discontinuity design rdd is a quasiexperimental pretestposttest design that elicits the causal effects of interventions by assigning a cutoff or threshold above or below which an intervention is assigned. Regression discontinuity rd designs have enjoyed a renaissance within economics in recent years, with wide application particularly in studies of primary and secondary education. Regression discontinuity designs with multiple assignment.
See appendix a for an elaboration of the findings pr esented. Regression discontinuity design in stata part 1 stata. Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design. The wwc continues to refine its processes, develop new standards, and create new products. Regression discontinuity designs in economics nber. The regression discontinuity design first appeared in the educational psychology literature in 1960, 35 was further developed in the 1970s and 1980s, 6, 7 and has become well established in economics over the last 2 decades. Regression discontinuity designs in economics by david lee. Economics, potsdam university, stockholm university, bayreuth university, marburg university. Regression discontinuity rd analysis is a rigorous nonexperimental1 approach that can be used to estimate program impacts in situations in which candidates are selected for treatment based on whether their value for a numeric rating exceeds a designated threshold or cutpoint. In regression discontinuity rd designs for evaluating causal effects of. Recent advances and applications the main reference for the lectures is d.
Circles denote the proportion of patients treated in each cd4 count bin. Validity hinges on assignment mechanism being known and free of manipulation with precision or cuto point in some way related to. Regression discontinuity designs in social sciences1. In this chapter, the fundamentals of the regression discontinuity design are considered.
The use of regression discontinuity designs rdds based on population thresholds was first suggested by pettersson. Discontinuity designs and describes how such designs can identify average treatment effects. These designs are applicable when a continuous scoring rule is used to assign the intervention to study units for example, school districts, schools, or students. Theory and applications advances in econometrics book 38 kindle edition by cattaneo, matias d. Within the causal inference framework, this design is considered among the most credible nonexperimental strategies because it relies on relatively weak and easy. Lidbom 2006, 2012, who evaluated the effect of the size of the municipal council on the extent of municipal spending in sweden and finland by comparing cities above and below population thresholds that determine council size. Heapinginduced bias in regressiondiscontinuity designs. For example, if the assignment variable z follows a uniform distribution over the range 0, 10, patients who are randomly assigned a value of z of. The main new features of this upgraded version are as follows. Regression discontinuity designs use observational data to examine treatment efficacy. This volume 38 of advances in econometrics collects twelve innovative and thoughtprovoking contributions to the rd literature, covering a wide range of methodological and practical topics. Randomized controlled trials in a regression discontinuity framework. Regression discontinuity designs in economics princeton.
Regression discontinuity designs in healthcare research. Pdf analysis of regression discontinuity designs with. Subscribe to this free journal for more curated articles on this topic. Regression discontinuity designs with multiple assignment variables yizhuang alden cheng april 11, 2016 abstract in this paper, i extend current research on regression discontinuity rd designs with multiple assignment variables. This paper provides an introduction and user guide to regression discontinuity rd designs for empirical resear. Discontinuity design relative to an otherwise comparable randomized. I discuss the assumptions underlying the validity of such rd designs, and introduce graphical. Regression discontinuity design department of economics. Waddell february 2015 forthcoming in economic inquiry abstract this study uses monte carlo simulations to demonstrate that regressiondiscontinuity designs arrive at biased estimates when attributes related to outcomes predict heaping in the running variable.
An individual, i, has two potential outcomes, and, which represent what would occur with. Regression discontinuity designs in economics pdf regression discontinuity designs in economics. The regression discontinuity rd design is widely used in economics and other social, behavioral, biomedical, and statistical sciences. The discussion begins with brief introduction to the ways in which statisticians think about causal inference. Regression discontinuity designs in economics david s. Heapinginduced bias in regressiondiscontinuity designs alan i. The rd literature calls this observed variable the running variable.
This article uses the example of statin prescription in primary care to explain the concept of the method and how it can be used randomised controlled trials are, in most scenarios, the best scientific method for evaluating the efficacy of treatment. Imbensa, thomas lemieuxb, adepartment of economics, harvard university and nber, m24 littauer center, cambridge, ma 028, usa bdepartment of economics, university of british columbia and nber, 9971873 east mall, vancouver, bc, v6t 1z1, canada. Lee and thomas lemieux this paper provides an introduction and user guide to regression discontinuity rd designs for empirical researchers. Nonparametric identification and estimation of dynamic treatment effects for survival data in a regression discontinuity design. The command \textttrdmc applies to noncummulative and cummulative multicutoff rd settings. Journal of econometrics, 1422, february 2008, pages 698. Children, economics of education, labor studies in regression discontinuity rd designs for evaluating causal effects of interventions, assignment to a treatment is determined at least partly by the value of an observed covariate lying on either. Journal of econometrics regression discontinuity designs. Concepts are discussed using examples drawn from the growing body of empirical research using rd. Her research interests include program evaluation in education contexts, causal inference, empirical tests of quasiexperimental designs, and implementation issues in regressiondiscontinuity design studies. These designs were first introduced in the evaluation. But the discontinuity alone is not sufficient to tell us whether the effect is positive or negative.
Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. Wong is a postdoctoral fellow at the institute for policy research, northwestern university, 2040 sheridan road, evanston, illinois 60208. It presents the basic theory behind the research design, details when rd is likely to be valid or invalid given economic incentives, explains why it is considered a quasiexperimental design, and summarizes different ways with their advantages and. Regression discontinuity rd analysis is a rigorous nonexperimental1 approach that. Reanalysis of south african data published in bor et al. Unlike experimental data, where randomized assignment guarantees comparability between persons in the treated group and in the control.
The regression discontinuity design rdd is a quasiexperimental design that estimates the causal effect of a treatment when its assignment is defined by a threshold value for a continuous. Regression discontinuity designs in economics american. Pdf regression discontinuity designs in healthcare research. Estimated over the range of the forcing variable democrat to republican difference in the share of vote in. A history of the regressiondiscontinuity design in psychology, statistics and economics. C1,h0,i0,j0 abstract this paper provides an introduction and user guide to regression discontinuity rd designs for empirical researchers. The regression discontinuity rd design is one of the most popular and credible research designs for program evaluation and causal inference. Validity hinges on assignment mechanism being known and free of manipulation with precision or cutoff point in some way related to. Finally, figure 5d shows a negative effect where the training resulted in lower qoc ratings than we would expect otherwise.
In regression discontinuity rd designs for evaluating causal effects of interventions, assignment to a treatment is determined at least partly by the value of an observed covariate lying on either side of a fixed threshold. Polynomials should not be used in regression discontinuity designs \we argue that estimators for causal e. Introduction to regression discontinuity rd designs rd designs as local randomized experiments and the manipulation problem. We describe a major upgrade to the stata and r rdrobust package, which provides a wide array of estimation, inference, and falsification methods for the analysis and interpretation of regressiondiscontinuity designs. By comparing observations lying closely on either side of the threshold, it is possible.
Regression discontinuity designs in social sciences 1 david s. This paper provides an introduction and user guide to regression. Regression discontinuity designs in economics princeton university. A practical guide to regression discontinuity mdrc. On interpreting the regression discontinuity design as a local experiment. Plan of the three lectures on regression discontinuity designs. The banking sector in india does not permit free entry of banking firms or branches. It presents the basic theory behind the research design, details when rd is likely to be valid or invalid given economic incentives. A discontinuity in regression lines indicates a program effect in the rd design. It presents the basic theory behind the research design, details when rd is likely to be valid or invalid given economic incentives, explains why it is considered a quasiexperimental design, and summarizes different ways with their advantages and disadvantages. Package rdd march 14, 2016 maintainer drew dimmery author drew dimmery version 0. If the other variables also jump at c, then the gap. University of british columbia ubc department of economics. Umapathi, in encyclopedia of health economics, 2014.
Quasiexperimental methods including differenceindifference dd models and regression discontinuity design rdd models have been used to get around the difficulties of modeling endogeneity and selecting appropriate ivs. Lee, david and lemieux, thomas, regression discontinuity designs in economics. A practical introduction to regression discontinuity designs arxiv. Regression discontinuity designs vancouver school of economics. Analyzing regressiondiscontinuity designs with multiple. We introduce the \textttstata and \textttr package \textttrdmulti, which includes three commands \textttrdmc, \textttrdmcplot, \textttrdms for analyzing regression discontinuity rd designs with multiple cutoffs or multiple scores.
Why highorder polynomials should not be used in regression discontinuity designs. Regression discontinuity design last updated september 28, 2019. First, in order for this approach to work, all other factors determining y must be evolving smoothly with respect to x. Request pdf regression discontinuity design in economics this paper provides an introduction and user guide to regression discontinuity rd designs for empirical researchers. When the assignment variable is a random number that is generated by the researcher, the regression discontinuity design is equivalent to a randomized controlled trial. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading regression discontinuity designs. Lee princeton university and nber thomas lemieux university of british columbia and nber may 20 abstract this chapter provides an overview of regression discontinuity rd designs for social science researchers. Lecturenote 19 causalinference usingthe regression. Citations of regression discontinuity designs in economics.
Regression discontinuity design in economics request pdf. This paper provides an introduction and user guide to regression discontinuity rd designs for empirical researchers. Regression discontinuity for causal effect estimation in. These models, which borrow from the more general program evaluation literature, rely on. Regression discontinuity designs in economics 287 design. It presents the basic theory behind the research design, details when rd is likely to be valid or invalid given economic incentives, explains why it is considered a quasiexperimental. Regression discontinuity with multiple running variables. Regression discontinuity design wikimili, the free. Regression discontinuity designs in economics by david s. Theory and applications advances in econometrics book 38. There has been a growing use of regression discontinuity design rdd, introduced by thistlewaite and campbell 1960, in evaluating impacts of development programs. This paper investigates banking expansion and economic growth.
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