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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 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

The synthetic control (SC) framework is widely used for observational causal inference with time-series panel data. SC has been successful in diverse applications, but existing methods typically treat the ordering of pre-intervention time…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-07 Saeyoung Rho , Cyrus Illick , Samhitha Narasipura , Alberto Abadie , Daniel Hsu , Vishal Misra

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

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

The randomized controlled trial (RCT) is the gold standard for estimating the average treatment effect (ATE) of a medical intervention but requires 100s-1000s of subjects, making it expensive and difficult to implement. While a cross-over…

Signal Processing · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2023-05-10 Sayeri Lala , Niraj K. Jha

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

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

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

We introduce a synthetic control methodology to study policies with staggered adoption. Many policies, such as the board gender diversity policies, are replicated by other policy setters at different time frames. Our method estimates the…

Econometrics · Economics 2025-11-18 Jianfei Cao , Shirley Lu , Hang Wu

Causal machine learning has the potential to revolutionize decision-making by combining the predictive power of machine learning algorithms with the theory of causal inference. However, these methods remain underutilized by the broader…

Stepped wedge cluster randomized trials (SW-CRTs) have become increasingly popular and are used for a variety of interventions and outcomes, often chosen for their feasibility advantages. SW-CRTs must account for time trends in the outcome…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-07-16 Lee Kennedy-Shaffer , Victor De Gruttola , Marc Lipsitch

The synthetic control method is an empirical methodology forcausal inference using observational data. By observing thespread of COVID-19 throughout the world, we analyze the dataon the number of deaths and cases in different regions…

Computers and Society · Computer Science 2020-09-29 Niloofar Bayat , Cody Morrin , Yuheng Wang , Vishal Misra

Understanding the effect of a particular treatment or a policy pertains to many areas of interest, ranging from political economics, marketing to healthcare. In this paper, we develop a non-parametric algorithm for detecting the effects of…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-08-24 Davide Viviano , Jelena Bradic

Clinical trials are typically run in order to understand the effects of a new treatment on a given population of patients. However, patients in large populations rarely respond the same way to the same treatment. This heterogeneity in…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-02-12 Alihan Hüyük , Zhaozhi Qian , Mihaela van der Schaar

Quantifying cause and effect relationships is an important problem in many domains. The gold standard solution is to conduct a randomised controlled trial. However, in many situations such trials cannot be performed. In the absence of such…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-01-19 Jakob Zeitler , Athanasios Vlontzos , Ciaran M. Gilligan-Lee

Causal inference is essential for developing and evaluating medical interventions, yet real-world medical datasets are often difficult to access due to regulatory barriers. This makes synthetic data a potentially valuable asset that enables…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-22 Harry Amad , Zhaozhi Qian , Dennis Frauen , Julianna Piskorz , Stefan Feuerriegel , Mihaela van der Schaar

We present a robust generalization of the synthetic control method for comparative case studies. Like the classical method, we present an algorithm to estimate the unobservable counterfactual of a treatment unit. A distinguishing feature of…

Econometrics · Economics 2017-11-21 Muhammad Jehangir Amjad , Devavrat Shah , Dennis Shen

Subgroup-specific meta-analysis synthesizes treatment effects for patient subgroups across randomized trials. Methods include joint or separate modeling of subgroup effects and treatment-by-subgroup interactions, but inconsistencies arise…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-08-22 Renato Panaro , Christian Röver , Tim Friede

The average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) in a staggered-adoption panel is estimated using an intercept-augmented synthetic-control (SCM) estimator. A weighted parallel trends plus an intercept shift, together with mild regularity…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-08-08 Michael Guggisberg