English
Related papers

Related papers: A Design-Based Perspective on Synthetic Control Me…

200 papers

Estimating causal effects on time-to-event outcomes from observational data is particularly challenging due to censoring, limited sample sizes, and non-random treatment assignment. The need for answering such "when-if" questions--how the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-19 Jessy Xinyi Han , Devavrat Shah

The synthetic control method (SCM) allows estimating the causal effect of an intervention in settings where panel data on a small number of treated and control units are available. We show that the existing SCM, as well as its extensions,…

Applications · Statistics 2022-05-20 Giovanni Mellace , Alessandra Pasquini

This paper extends the literature on the theoretical properties of synthetic controls to the case of non-linear generative models, showing that the synthetic control estimator is generally biased in such settings. I derive a lower bound for…

Econometrics · Economics 2021-11-23 Oscar Engelbrektson

The synthetic control method estimates the causal effect by comparing the treated unit's outcomes to a weighted average of control units that closely match its pre-treatment outcomes, assuming the relationship between treated and control…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-01-07 Taehyeon Koo , Zijian Guo

We investigate the optimal design of experimental studies that have pre-treatment outcome data available. The average treatment effect is estimated as the difference between the weighted average outcomes of the treated and control units. A…

The synthetic control method (SCM) is widely used for causal inference with panel data, particularly when the number of treated units is small. It relies on the stable unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA), ruling out spillover effects.…

Econometrics · Economics 2026-03-26 Shosei Sakaguchi , Hayato Tagawa

This paper studies inference on treatment effects in panel data settings with unobserved confounding. We model outcome variables through a factor model with random factors and loadings. Such factors and loadings may act as unobserved…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-12-05 Guido W. Imbens , Davide Viviano

Difference-in-Differences (DiD) and Synthetic Control (SC) are widely used methods for causal inference in panel data, each with distinct strengths and limitations. We propose a novel method for short-panel causal inference that integrates…

Econometrics · Economics 2025-09-26 Yixiao Sun , Haitian Xie , Yuhang Zhang

In causal inference with observational studies, synthetic control (SC) has emerged as a prominent tool. SC has traditionally been applied to aggregate-level datasets, but more recent work has extended its use to individual-level data. As…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-28 Saeyoung Rho , Andrew Tang , Noah Bergam , Rachel Cummings , Vishal Misra

The synthetic control method (SCM) is a popular approach for estimating the impact of a treatment on a single unit in panel data settings. The "synthetic control" is a weighted average of control units that balances the treated unit's…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-07-24 Eli Ben-Michael , Avi Feller , Jesse Rothstein

The Synthetic Control method (SC) has become a valuable tool for estimating causal effects. Originally designed for single-treated unit scenarios, it has recently found applications in high-dimensional disaggregated settings with multiple…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-28 Ye Shen , Rui Song , Alberto Abadie

Estimation and inference procedures for synthetic control methods often do not allow for the existence of spillover effects, which are plausible in many applications. In this paper, we consider estimation and inference for synthetic control…

Econometrics · Economics 2026-01-23 Jianfei Cao , Connor Dowd

The synthetic control method (SCM) is a popular approach for estimating the impact of a treatment on a single unit with panel data. Two challenges arise with higher frequency data (e.g., monthly versus yearly): (1) achieving excellent…

Econometrics · Economics 2024-04-16 Liyang Sun , Eli Ben-Michael , Avi Feller

The synthetic control method (SCM) is a widely used tool for evaluating causal effects of policy changes in panel data settings. Recent studies have extended its framework to accommodate complex outcomes that take values in metric spaces,…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-01-13 Ryo Okano , Daisuke Kurisu

This paper provides new insights into the asymptotic properties of the synthetic control method (SCM). We show that the synthetic control (SC) weight converges to a limiting weight that minimizes the mean squared prediction risk of the…

Econometrics · Economics 2022-11-23 Xiaomeng Zhang , Wendun Wang , Xinyu Zhang

The synthetic controls (SC) methodology is a prominent tool for policy evaluation in panel data applications. Researchers commonly justify the SC framework with a low-rank matrix factor model that assumes the potential outcomes are…

Econometrics · Economics 2024-08-27 Anish Agarwal , Devavrat Shah , Dennis Shen

Social scientists often study how a policy reform impacted a single targeted country. Increasingly, this is done with the synthetic control method (SCM). SCM models the country's counterfactual (non-reform or untreated) trajectory as a…

Applications · Statistics 2019-10-15 Elias Tuomaala

Iterative Synthetic Control Method is introduced in this study, a modification of the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) designed to improve its predictive performance by utilizing control units affected by the treatment in question. This…

Econometrics · Economics 2024-05-06 Andrii Melnychuk

Stochastic model predictive control (SMPC) has been a promising solution to complex control problems under uncertain disturbances. However, traditional SMPC approaches either require exact knowledge of probabilistic distributions, or rely…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2020-01-03 Chao Shang , Fengqi You

As an alternative to synthetic control, the distributional Synthetic Control (DSC) proposed by Gunsilius (2023) provides estimates for quantile treatment effect and thus enabling researchers to comprehensively understand the impact of…

Econometrics · Economics 2026-05-12 Lu Zhang , Xiaomeng Zhang , Xinyu Zhang