Robust Inference for Weighted Estimands

Vod Vilfort

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: Researchers often conduct inference on weighted estimands, defined as weighted averages of group-level effects. Example settings include event studies with cohort-level effects and experiments with site-level effects. Under heterogeneous effects, different weighting schemes yield estimands with distinct empirical and policy interpretations, leading to ambiguity and disagreement over the choice of weights. I establish bounds on differences between weighted estimands and confidence bounds on effect heterogeneity, which I use to construct estimators that minimize worst-case bias and confidence intervals that are uniformly valid over classes of weighted estimands. I apply these methods to an event study in Lakdawala, Nakasone, and Kho (2023), which studies the effects of school-based internet access on test scores. I find that results are robust to broad classes of weights. I then apply the methods to Tennessee's Project STAR experiment and find that results are sensitive to small departures from baseline weights.

Date: 2026-07
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