Distributional Tests for Regression Discontinuity: Theory and Empirical Examples

Shu Shen and Xiaohan Zhang
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Shu Shen: University of California, Davis

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2016, vol. 98, issue 4, 685-700

Abstract: This paper proposes consistent testing methods for examining the effect of a policy treatment on the whole distribution of a response outcome within the setting of a regression discontinuity design. These methods are particularly useful when a policy is expected to produce treatment effects that are heterogeneous along some unobserved characteristics. The test statistics are Kolmogorov-Smirnov-type and are asymptotically distribution free when the data are i.i.d. The proposed tests are applied to three seminal RD studies (Pop-Eleches & Urquiola, 2013; Abdulkadiroglu, Angrist, & Pathak, 2014; and Battistin et al., 2009).

JEL-codes: C12 C21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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