Alternative Approaches to Evaluation in Empirical Microeconomics

Richard Blundell () and Monica Costa Dias

CEF.UP Working Papers from Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto

Abstract: This paper reviews a range of the most popular policy evaluation methods in empirical microeconomics: social experiments, natural experiments, matching methods, instrumental variables, discontinuity design and control functions. It discusses the identification of both the traditionally used average parameters and more complex distributional parameters. In each case, the necessary assumptions and the data requirements are considered. The adequacy of each approach is discussed drawing on the empirical evidence from the education and labor market policy evaluation literature. We also develop an education evaluation model which we use to carry through the discussion of each alternative approach. A full set of STATA datasets are provided free online which contain Monte-Carlo replications of the various specifications of the education evaluation model. There are also a full set of STATA .do files for each of the estimation approaches described in the paper. The .do-files can be used together with the datasets to reproduce all the results in the paper.

Keywords: Evaluation methods; policy evaluation; matching methods; instrumental variables; social experiments; natural experiments; difference-in-differences; discontinuity design; control function. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 J21 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 125 pages
Date: 2008-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (96)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Alternative Approaches to Evaluation in Empirical Microeconomics (2009)
Working Paper: Alternative approaches to evaluation in empirical microeconomics (2008)
Working Paper: Alternative approaches to evaluation in empirical microeconomics (2008)
Working Paper: Alternative Approaches to Evaluation in Empirical Microeconomics (2008)
Journal Article: Alternative approaches to evaluation in empirical microeconomics (2002)
Working Paper: Alternative approaches to evaluation in empirical microeconomics (2002)
Working Paper: Alternative approaches to evaluation in empirical microeconomics (2002)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:por:cetedp:0805

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