When can we ignore measurement error in the running variable?

Yingying Dong and Michal Kolesár

Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2023, vol. 38, issue 5, 735-750

Abstract: In many applications of regression discontinuity designs, the running variable used to assign treatment is only observed with error. We show that, provided the observed running variable (i) correctly classifies treatment assignment and (ii) affects the conditional means of potential outcomes smoothly, ignoring the measurement error nonetheless yields an estimate with a causal interpretation: the average treatment effect for units whose observed running variable equals the cutoff. Possibly after doughnut trimming, these assumptions accommodate a variety of settings where support of the measurement error is not too wide. An empirical application illustrates the results for both sharp and fuzzy designs.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.2974

Related works:
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:japmet:v:38:y:2023:i:5:p:735-750

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www3.intersci ... e.jsp?issn=0883-7252

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Applied Econometrics is currently edited by M. Hashem Pesaran

More articles in Journal of Applied Econometrics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().