Matching Estimators

14 important questions on Matching Estimators

What are the assumptions for calculating treatment effects with treatment estimators?

- Conditional Independence assumption.
- Overleap assumption.

What variables should be in X?

- Vector X should include all variables such that CIA holds.
- Vector X should not include variables which could be influenced by treatment.

Formula ATE in case of matching:

alpha = sum_x E(Y1i-Y01|Xi=1)*P(Xi=x)
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Formula ATET in case of matching:

alpha = sum_x E(Y1i - Y0i|Di=1,Xi=x)*P(Xi=x|Di=1)

Formula matching estimator:

delta = sum(i in T){Yi - sum(j in C) wtilde_ij*Yj}wi

What are the methods to calculate the counterfactual?

- Exact matching.
- Matching based on closeness to observables.
- Propensity score matching.

Idea exact matching:

Counterfactual is mean outcome in control group for observations with same characteristics.

Tradeoff nearest neighbour/more neighbours?

- One neighbour --> least bias, since the difference in observed characteristics is minimal.
- More neighbors --> less variance, because each counterfactual is calculated as average of several observations.

What is the advantage and disadvantage of propensity score matching?

+ As the propensity score is onedimensional, matching on P(Xi) might have better finite sample properties then matching directly on the high-dimensional Xi.
- Propensity score must be estimated, which can be source of bias.

What does the overleap assumption require?

For every value of P(Xi) there are observations with Di = 0 and Di = 1 in the sample.

Steps to estimate ATT with propensity score:

1. Compute E(Y1i|Di=1)
2. Estimate the propensity score with logit/probit.
3. Find weights wij based on propensity score. Decide on weighting function wij.
4. Calculate counterfactuals for every i.
5. Compute E(Y0i|Di=1)

What are the advantages of propensity score matching?

+ Allows for heterogeneous effects of Di.
+ Imposes minimal structure on the estimation.

What are the disadvantages of propensity score matching?

- Requires CIA.
- Requires common support assumption.
- No general asymptotic theory is available.

What is the regression estimator in case OLS estimator as matching estimator?

Not ATE or ATET, but a differently weighted average of treatment effects.

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