1

Paper

Genetic Matching for Estimating Causal Effects: A General Multivariate Matching Method for Achieving Balance in Observational Studies Diamond, Alexis Sekhon, Jasjeet Uploaded 07-19-2005 Keywords Matching Propensity Score Causal Inference Genetic Algorithm Evolutionary Programming Optimization Program Evaluation Abstract Genetic matching is a new method for performing multivariate matching which uses an evolutionary search algorithm to determine the weight each covariate is given. The method utilizes an evolutionary algorithm developed by Mebane and Sekhon (1998; Sekhon and Mebane 1998) that maximizes the balance of observed potential confounders across matched treated and control units. The method is nonparametric and does not depend on knowing or estimating the propensity score, but the method is greatly improved when a known or estimated propensity score is incorporated. Genetic matching reliably reduces both the bias and the mean square error of the estimated causal effect even when the property of equal percent bias reduction (EPBR) does not hold. When this property does not hold, matching methods---such as Mahalanobis distance and propensity score matching---often perform poorly. Even if the EPBR property does hold and the propensity score is correctly specified, in finite samples, estimates based on genetic matching have lower mean square error than those based on the usual matching methods. We present a reanalysis of the LaLonde (1986) job training dataset which demonstrates the benefits of genetic matching and which helps to resolve a longstanding debate between Dehejia and Wahba (1999, 2002); Dehejia (2005) and Smith and Todd (2001, 2005a,b) over the ability of matching to overcome LaLonde's critique of nonexperimental estimators. Monte Carlos are also presented to demonstrate the properties of our method.

2

Paper

Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California's Tobacco Control Program Abadie, Alberto Diamond, Alexis Hainmueller, Jens Uploaded 01-20-2007 Keywords comparative case studies causal inference placebo tests differences-in-differences program evaluation Abstract Building on an idea in Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003), this article investigates the application of synthetic control methods to comparative case studies. We discuss the advantages of these methods and apply them to study the effects of Proposition 99, a large-scale tobacco control program that California implemented in 1988. We demonstrate that following Proposition 99 tobacco consumption fell markedly in California relative to a comparable synthetic control region. We estimate that by the year 2000 annual per-capita cigarette sales in California were about 26 packs lower than what they would have been in the absence of Proposition 99. Given that many policy interventions and events of interest in social sciences take place at an aggregate level (countries, regions, cities, etc.) and affect a small number of aggregate units, the potential applicability of synthetic control methods to comparative case studies is very large, especially in situations where traditional regression methods are not appropriate. The methods proposed in this article produce informative inference regardless of the number of available comparison units, the number of available time periods, and whether the data are individual (micro) or aggregate (macro). Software to compute the estimators proposed in this article is available at the authors web-pages.