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Related papers: Single Proxy Synthetic Control

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We provide new results for nonparametric identification, estimation, and inference of causal effects using `proxy controls': observables that are noisy but informative proxies for unobserved confounding factors. Our analysis applies to…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-11-22 Ben Deaner

A/B tests, also known as randomized controlled experiments (RCTs), are the gold standard for evaluating the impact of new policies, products, or decisions. However, these tests can be costly in terms of time and resources, potentially…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-01-03 Shima Nassiri , Mohsen Bayati , Joe Cooprider

Motivated by a recent literature on the double-descent phenomenon in machine learning, we consider highly over-parameterized models in causal inference, including synthetic control with many control units. In such models, there may be so…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-10-16 Jann Spiess , Guido Imbens , Amar Venugopal

The optimal design of experiments typically involves solving an NP-hard combinatorial optimization problem. In this paper, we aim to develop a globally convergent and practically efficient optimization algorithm. Specifically, we consider a…

Econometrics · Economics 2022-11-29 Yiping Lu , Jiajin Li , Lexing Ying , Jose Blanchet

We introduce new inference procedures for counterfactual and synthetic control methods for policy evaluation. We recast the causal inference problem as a counterfactual prediction and a structural breaks testing problem. This allows us to…

Econometrics · Economics 2022-01-26 Victor Chernozhukov , Kaspar Wüthrich , Yinchu Zhu

The synthetic control method is often applied to problems with one treated unit and a small number of control units. A common inferential task in this setting is to test null hypotheses regarding the average treatment effect on the treated.…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-04-22 Lihua Lei , Timothy Sudijono

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

In this paper, we adopt results in nonlinear time series analysis for causal inference in dynamical settings.~Our motivation is policy analysis with panel data, particularly through the use of "synthetic control" methods. These methods…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-03-03 Yi Ding , Panos Toulis

Unmeasured confounding presents a significant challenge in causal inference from observational studies. Classical approaches often rely on collecting proxy variables, such as instrumental variables. However, in applications where the…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-01-16 Xiaochuan Shi , Dehan Kong , Linbo Wang

This paper discusses a practical approach that combines synthetic control with triple difference to address violations of the parallel trends assumption. By transforming triple difference into a DID structure, we can apply synthetic control…

Econometrics · Economics 2024-09-24 Castiel Chen Zhuang

This paper reinterprets the Synthetic Control (SC) framework through the lens of weighting philosophy, arguing that the contrast between traditional SC and Difference-in-Differences (DID) reflects two distinct modeling mindsets: sparse…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-31 Le Wang , Xin Xing , Youhui Ye

Uncertainty quantification of causal effects is crucial for safety-critical applications such as personalized medicine. A powerful approach for this is conformal prediction, which has several practical benefits due to model-agnostic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-04 Maresa Schröder , Dennis Frauen , Jonas Schweisthal , Konstantin Heß , Valentyn Melnychuk , Stefan Feuerriegel

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

The purpose of this work is to transport the information from multiple randomized controlled trials to the target population where we only have the control group data. Previous works rely critically on the mean exchangeability assumption.…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-09-29 Yuhang Zhang , Yue Liu , Zhihua Zhang

Mixed-frequency data, where variables are observed at different temporal resolutions, commonly occur in economic and financial studies. Classical synthetic control methods (SCM) are ill-suited for such data, often necessitating aggregation…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-05-13 Lu Zhang , Shijin Gong , Xinyu Zhang

Randomized clinical trials are the gold standard when estimating the average treatment effect. However, they are usually not a random sample from the real-world population because of the inclusion/exclusion rules. Meanwhile, observational…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-12-11 Kuan Jiang , Wenjie Hu , Shu Yang , Xinxing Lai , Xiaohua Zhou

When evaluating the impact of a policy on a metric of interest, it may not be possible to conduct a randomized control trial. In settings where only observational data is available, Synthetic Control (SC) methods provide a popular…

Methodology · Statistics 2019-09-24 Muhummad Amjad , Vishal Misra , Devavrat Shah , Dennis Shen

We present new results for nonparametric identification of causal effects using noisy proxies for unobserved confounders. Our approach builds on the results of \citet{Hu2008} who tackle the problem of general measurement error. We call this…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-05-05 Ben Deaner

This study proposes a new Bayesian approach to infer binary treatment effects. The approach treats counterfactual untreated outcomes as missing observations and infers them by completing a matrix composed of realized and potential untreated…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-04-20 Masahiro Tanaka

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