IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-19-00684.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating Treatment Effects With Artificial Neural Nets – A Comparison to Synthetic Control Method

Author

Listed:
  • Arne Steinkraus

    (Institute of Economics Braunschweig)

Abstract

With the advent of big data in economics machine learning algorithms become more and more appealing to economists. Despite some attempts of establishing artificial neural networks in in the early 1990s, only little is known about their ability of estimating causal effects. We employ a simple forecasting neural network to analyze the effect of the construction of the Oresund bridge on the local economy. The outcome is compared to the causal effect estimated by the proven Synthetic Control Method. Our results suggest that neural nets may outperform traditional approaches.

Suggested Citation

  • Arne Steinkraus, 2019. "Estimating Treatment Effects With Artificial Neural Nets – A Comparison to Synthetic Control Method," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(4), pages 2778-2791.
  • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-00684
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2019/Volume39/EB-19-V39-I4-P259.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Munasib, Abdul & Rickman, Dan S., 2015. "Regional economic impacts of the shale gas and tight oil boom: A synthetic control analysis," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-17.
    2. Alberto Abadie & Javier Gardeazabal, 2003. "The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 113-132, March.
    3. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    4. Fiona Burlig & Christopher Knittel & David Rapson & Mar Reguant & Catherine Wolfram, 2020. "Machine Learning from Schools about Energy Efficiency," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(6), pages 1181-1217.
    5. Alfredo M. Pereira & Jorge M. Andraz, 2013. "On The Economic Effects Of Public Infrastructure Investment: A Survey Of The International Evidence," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 1-37, December.
    6. David Alan Aschauer, 1989. "Back of the G-7 pack: public investment and productivity growth in the Group of Seven," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues 89-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    7. Aschauer, David Alan, 1989. "Does public capital crowd out private capital?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 171-188, September.
    8. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    9. Alfredo Pereira & Jorge Andraz, 2004. "Public highway spending and state spillovers in the USA," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(12), pages 785-788.
    10. Martin Obschonka & David B. Audretsch, 2019. "Artificial Intelligence and Big Data in Entrepreneurship: A New Era Has Begun," Papers 1906.00553, arXiv.org.
    11. Lee, Tae-Hwy & White, Halbert & Granger, Clive W. J., 1993. "Testing for neglected nonlinearity in time series models : A comparison of neural network methods and alternative tests," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 269-290, April.
    12. Thomas C. Buchmueller & John DiNardo & Robert G. Valletta, 2011. "The Effect of an Employer Health Insurance Mandate on Health Insurance Coverage and the Demand for Labor: Evidence from Hawaii," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 25-51, November.
    13. Mercedes Gumbau Albert & Joaquín Maudos Villarroya & Pedro Cantos, 2002. "Transport Infrastructures And Regional Growth: Evidence Of The Spanish Case," Working Papers. Serie EC 2002-27, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    14. Paolo Pinotti, 2015. "The Economic Costs of Organised Crime: Evidence from Southern Italy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(586), pages 203-232, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steinkraus, Arne, 2018. "Rethinking Policy Evaluation – Do Simple Neural Nets Bear Comparison with Synthetic Control Method?," EconStor Preprints 177390, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    2. Sandra Achten & Lars Beyer & Antje-Mareike Dietrich & Dennis Ebeling & Christian Lessmann & Arne Steinkraus, 2019. "Large scale infrastructure investment and economic performance – a case study of Oresund," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 21-26, January.
    3. Ehrich, Malte & Munasib, Abdul & Roy, Devesh, 2018. "The Hartz reforms and the German labor force," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 284-300.
    4. Monastiriotis, Vassilis & Zilic, Ivan, 2020. "The economic effects of political disintegration: Lessons from Serbia and Montenegro," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    5. Giulio Grossi & Marco Mariani & Alessandra Mattei & Patrizia Lattarulo & Ozge Oner, 2020. "Direct and spillover effects of a new tramway line on the commercial vitality of peripheral streets. A synthetic-control approach," Papers 2004.05027, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    6. Castillo, Victoria & Figal Garone, Lucas & Maffioli, Alessandro & Salazar, Lina, 2017. "The causal effects of regional industrial policies on employment: A synthetic control approach," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 25-41.
    7. Karen Maguire & Abdul Munasib, 2016. "The Disparate Influence of State Renewable Portfolio Standards on Renewable Electricity Generation Capacity," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 92(3), pages 468-490.
    8. Karen Maguire & Abdul Munasib, 2018. "Electricity Price Increase in Texas: What is the Role of RPS?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 69(2), pages 293-316, February.
    9. Munasib, Abdul & Jordan, Jeffrey L. & Mathur, Aparna & Roy, Devesh, 2015. "Do Right to Work Laws Worsen Income Inequality? Evidence from the Last Five Decades," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205341, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Tianyuan Luo & Genti Kostandini, 2022. "Stringent immigration enforcement and responses of the immigrant‐intensive sector: Evidence from E‐Verify adoption in Arizona," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 104(4), pages 1411-1434, August.
    11. Gregor Pfeifer & Fabian Wahl & Martyna Marczak, 2018. "Illuminating the World Cup effect: Night lights evidence from South Africa," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(5), pages 887-920, November.
    12. Alfredo Marvão Pereira & Rui Manuel Pereira, 2017. "Infrastructure Investment in Portugal and the Traded/Non-Traded Industry Mix," GEE Papers 0078, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Sep 2017.
    13. Muhammad Javid, 2019. "Public and Private Infrastructure Investment and Economic Growth in Pakistan: An Aggregate and Disaggregate Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-22, June.
    14. Bidisha Lahiri & Anurag Deb, 2022. "Impact of the Indian “demonetization” policy on its export performance," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(6), pages 2799-2825, June.
    15. Samuel Verevis & Murat Üngör, 2021. "What has New Zealand gained from The FTA with China?: Two counterfactual analyses†," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(1), pages 20-50, February.
    16. Niklas Potrafke & Fabian Ruthardt & Kaspar Wuthrich, 2020. "Protectionism and economic growth: Causal evidence from the first era of globalization," Papers 2010.02378, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2022.
    17. Samer Matta & Michael Bleaney & Simon Appleton, 2022. "The economic impact of political instability and mass civil protest," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 253-270, March.
    18. Rohan Best & Paul J. Burke, 2019. "Macroeconomic impacts of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 1647-1681, May.
    19. Jacob Bundrick & Weici Yuan, 2019. "Do Targeted Business Subsidies Improve Income and Reduce Poverty? A Synthetic Control Approach," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 33(4), pages 351-375, November.
    20. Huseynov, Samir & Palma, Marco A., 2018. "Does California’s LCFS Reduce CO2 Emissions?," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274200, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Artificial Neural Nets; Machine Learning; Synthetic Control Method; Policy Evaluation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C4 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-00684. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.