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Synthetic Control and Inference

Author

Listed:
  • Jinyong Hahn

    (Department of Economics, University of California Los Angeles, 8283 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA)

  • Ruoyao Shi

    (Department of Economics, University of California Riverside, 3136 Sproul Hall, Riverside, CA 92521, USA)

Abstract

We examine properties of permutation tests in the context of synthetic control. Permutation tests are frequently used methods of inference for synthetic control when the number of potential control units is small. We analyze the permutation tests from a repeated sampling perspective and show that the size of permutation tests may be distorted. Several alternative methods are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Jinyong Hahn & Ruoyao Shi, 2017. "Synthetic Control and Inference," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-12, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jecnmx:v:5:y:2017:i:4:p:52-:d:120610
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Eli Ben-Michael & Avi Feller & Jesse Rothstein, 2018. "The Augmented Synthetic Control Method," Papers 1811.04170, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2020.
    4. Dmitry Arkhangelsky & Susan Athey & David A. Hirshberg & Guido W. Imbens & Stefan Wager, 2019. "Synthetic Difference In Differences," NBER Working Papers 25532, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto & Vitor Possebom, 2020. "Cherry Picking with Synthetic Controls," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 510-532, March.
    6. Nikolay Doudchenko & Guido W. Imbens, 2016. "Balancing, Regression, Difference-In-Differences and Synthetic Control Methods: A Synthesis," NBER Working Papers 22791, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Funke, Manuel & Schularick, Moritz & Trebesch, Christoph, 2020. "Populist leaders and the economy," Kiel Working Papers 2169, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    8. Yi‐Ting Chen, 2020. "A distributional synthetic control method for policy evaluation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(5), pages 505-525, August.
    9. Marina Dias & Demian Pouzo, 2021. "Inference for multi-valued heterogeneous treatment effects when the number of treated units is small," Papers 2105.10965, arXiv.org.
    10. Born, Benjamin & Müller, Gernot & Schularick, Moritz & Sedlacek, Petr, 2019. "Stable genius? The macroeconomic impact of Trump," CEPR Discussion Papers 13798, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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    14. Manuel Funke & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch, 2020. "Populist Leaders and the Economy," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 036, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    15. Fredriksen, Kaja & Runst, Petrik, 2018. "Are estimates of the "natural experiment" in the German crafts sector causal?," ifh Working Papers 16/2018, Volkswirtschaftliches Institut für Mittelstand und Handwerk an der Universität Göttingen (ifh).
    16. Davide Viviano & Jelena Bradic, 2019. "Synthetic learner: model-free inference on treatments over time," Papers 1904.01490, arXiv.org.
    17. Ferman, Bruno & Pinto, Cristine, 2017. "Placebo Tests for Synthetic Controls," MPRA Paper 78079, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Ferman, Bruno, 2021. "Matching estimators with few treated and many control observations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 295-307.
    19. Justin Wiltshire, 2021. "allsynth: Synthetic control bias-corrections utilities for Stata," 2021 Stata Conference 15, Stata Users Group.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    synthetic control; permutation test; symmetry;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General

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