A Correction for Regression Discontinuity Designs with Group-Specific Mismeasurement of the Running Variable

Otavio Bartalotti, Quentin Brummet and Steven Dieterle

No 12366, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: When the running variable in a regression discontinuity (RD) design is measured with error, identification of the local average treatment effect of interest will typically fail. While the form of this measurement error varies across applications, in many cases the measurement error structure is heterogeneous across different groups of observations. We develop a novel measurement error correction procedure capable of addressing heterogeneous mismeasurement structures by leveraging auxiliary information. We also provide adjusted asymptotic variance and standard errors that take into consideration the variability introduced by the estimation of nuisance parameters, and honest confidence intervals that account for potential misspecification. Simulations provide evidence that the proposed procedure corrects the bias introduced by heterogeneous measurement error and achieves empirical coverage closer to nominal test size than "naïve" alternatives. Two empirical illustrations demonstrate that correcting for measurement error can either reinforce the results of a study or provide a new empirical perspective on the data.

Keywords: nonclassical measurement error; regression discontinuity; heterogeneous measurement error (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C21 I12 J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2019-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp12366.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A Correction for Regression Discontinuity Designs With Group-Specific Mismeasurement of the Running Variable (2021)
Working Paper: A Correction for Regression Discontinuity Designs With Group-Specific Mismeasurement of the Running Variable (2020)
Working Paper: A Correction for Regression Discontinuity Designs with Group-Specific Mismeasurement of the Running Variable (2019)
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:dp12366

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 ().