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Policy design in experiments with unknown interference

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  • Davide Viviano
  • Jess Rudder

Abstract

This paper studies experimental designs for estimation and inference on policies with spillover effects. Units are organized into a finite number of large clusters and interact in unknown ways within each cluster. First, we introduce a single-wave experiment that, by varying the randomization across cluster pairs, estimates the marginal effect of a change in treatment probabilities, taking spillover effects into account. Using the marginal effect, we propose a test for policy optimality. Second, we design a multiple-wave experiment to estimate welfare-maximizing treatment rules. We provide strong theoretical guarantees and an implementation in a large-scale field experiment.

Suggested Citation

  • Davide Viviano & Jess Rudder, 2020. "Policy design in experiments with unknown interference," Papers 2011.08174, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2011.08174
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    References listed on IDEAS

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