The performance of sample selection estimators to control for attrition bias
Astrid Grasdal
Health Economics, 2001, vol. 10, issue 5, 385-398
Abstract:
Sample attrition is a potential source of selection bias in experimental, as well as non‐experimental programme evaluation. For labour market outcomes, such as employment status and earnings, missing data problems caused by attrition can be circumvented by the collection of follow‐up data from administrative registers. For most non‐labour market outcomes, however, investigators must rely on participants' willingness to co‐operate in keeping detailed follow‐up records and statistical correction procedures to identify and adjust for attrition bias. This paper combines survey and register data from a Norwegian randomized field trial to evaluate the performance of parametric and semi‐parametric sample selection estimators commonly used to correct for attrition bias. The considered estimators work well in terms of producing point estimates of treatment effects close to the experimental benchmark estimates. Results are sensitive to exclusion restrictions. The analysis also demonstrates an inherent paradox in the ‘common support’ approach, which prescribes exclusion from the analysis of observations outside of common support for the selection probability. The more important treatment status is as a determinant of attrition, the larger is the proportion of treated with support for the selection probability outside the range, for which comparison with untreated counterparts is possible. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Date: 2001
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)
Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.628
Related works:
Working Paper: The Performance of Sample Selection Estimators to Control for Attrition Bias (2001)
Working Paper: The Performance of Sample Selection Estimators to Control for Attrition Bias (2000)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:10:y:2001:i:5:p:385-398
Access Statistics for this article
Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones
More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().