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Staggered adoption of policies by different units at different times creates promising opportunities for observational causal inference. Estimation remains challenging, however, and common regression methods can give misleading results. A…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-01-19 Eli Ben-Michael , Avi Feller , Jesse Rothstein

We generalize the synthetic control (SC) method to a multiple-outcome framework, where the conventional pre-treatment time dimension is supplemented with the extra dimension of related outcomes in computing the SC weights. This…

General Economics · Economics 2024-07-29 Wei Tian , Seojeong Lee , Valentyn Panchenko

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

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

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

We propose a sensitivity analysis for Synthetic Control (SC) treatment effect estimates to interrogate the assumption that the SC method is well-specified, namely that choosing weights to minimize pre-treatment prediction error yields…

Econometrics · Economics 2021-02-23 Billy Ferguson , Brad Ross

Synthetic control is a causal inference tool used to estimate the treatment effects of an intervention by creating synthetic counterfactual data. This approach combines measurements from other similar observations (i.e., donor pool ) to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-27 Saeyoung Rho , Rachel Cummings , Vishal Misra

Baseline estimation is critical to Demand Response (DR) settlement in electricity markets, yet existing machine learning methods remain limited in predictive performance, while methodologies from causal inference and counterfactual…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-04-21 Jonas Sievers , Mardavij Roozbehani

We propose a hybrid Monte Carlo (HMC) technique applicable to high-dimensional multivariate normal distributions that effectively samples along chaotic trajectories. The method is predicated on the freedom of choice of the HMC momentum…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2016-04-26 Nirag Kadakia

We analyze the synthetic control (SC) method in panel data settings with many units. We assume the treatment assignment is based on unobserved heterogeneity and pre-treatment information, allowing for both strictly and sequentially…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-12-27 Dmitry Arkhangelsky , David Hirshberg

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

Synthetic control methods are widely used to estimate the treatment effect on a single treated unit in time-series settings. A common approach to estimate synthetic control weights is to regress the treated unit's pre-treatment outcome and…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-03-06 Chan Park , Eric Tchetgen Tchetgen

When forecasting time series with a hierarchical structure, the existing state of the art is to forecast each time series independently, and, in a post-treatment step, to reconcile the time series in a way that respects the hierarchy…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-06-26 Konstantin Mishchenko , Mallory Montgomery , Federico Vaggi

Synthetic control (SC) methods are commonly used to estimate the treatment effect on a single treated unit in panel data settings. An SC is a weighted average of control units built to match the treated unit, with weights typically…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-02-21 Xu Shi , Kendrick Li , Wang Miao , Mengtong Hu , Eric Tchetgen Tchetgen

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

In a seminal paper Abadie, Diamond, and Hainmueller [2010] (ADH), see also Abadie and Gardeazabal [2003], Abadie et al. [2014], develop the synthetic control procedure for estimating the effect of a treatment, in the presence of a single…

Applications · Statistics 2017-09-21 Nikolay Doudchenko , Guido W. Imbens

Symbolic approaches to the control design over complex systems employ the construction of finite-state models that are related to the original control systems, then use techniques from finite-state synthesis to compute controllers…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2013-02-18 Majid Zamani , Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani , Rupak Majumdar , Alessandro Abate , John Lygeros

Counterfactual estimation using synthetic controls is one of the most successful recent methodological developments in causal inference. Despite its popularity, the current description only considers time series aligned across units and…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-02-03 Alexis Bellot , Mihaela van der Schaar

Popular empirical strategies for policy evaluation in the panel data literature -- including difference-in-differences (DID), synthetic control (SC) methods, and their variants -- rely on key identifying assumptions that can be expressed…

Econometrics · Economics 2025-11-11 Yiqi Liu

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