Including Covariates in the Regression Discontinuity Design

Markus Frölich () and Martin Huber

No 11138, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper proposes a fully nonparametric kernel method to account for observed covariates in regression discontinuity designs (RDD), which may increase precision of treatment effect estimation. It is shown that conditioning on covariates reduces the asymptotic variance and allows estimating the treatment effect at the rate of one-dimensional nonparametric regression, irrespective of the dimension of the continuously distributed elements in the conditioning set. Furthermore, the proposed method may decrease bias and restore identification by controlling for discontinuities in the covariate distribution at the discontinuity threshold, provided that all relevant discontinuously distributed variables are controlled for. To illustrate the estimation approach and its properties, we provide a simulation study and an empirical application to an Austrian labor market reform.

Keywords: LATE; complier; causal effect; treatment effect; nonparametric regression; endogeneity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 C14 C21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2017-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp11138.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Including Covariates in the Regression Discontinuity Design (2019)
Working Paper: Including covariates in the regression discontinuity design (2017)
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:iza:izadps:dp11138

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().