Program Evaluation and Research Designs

John DiNardo and David Lee
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David Lee: Princeton University and NBER

No 1228, Working Papers from Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.

Abstract: This chapter provides a selective review of some contemporary approaches to program evaluation. One motivation for our review is the recent emergence and increasing use of a particular kind of program in applied microeconomic research, the so-called Regression Discontinuity (RD) Design of Thistlethwaite and Campbell (1960). We organize our discussion of these various research designs by how they secure internal validity: in this view, the RD design can been seen as a close cousin of the randomized experiment. An important distinction which emerges from our discussion of heterogeneous treatment effects is between ex post (descriptive) and ex ante (predictive) evaluations; these two types of evaluations have distinct, but complementary goals. A second important distinction we make is between statistical statements that are descriptions of our knowledge of the program assignment process and statistical statements that are structural assumptions about individual behavior. Using these distinctions, we examine some commonly employed evaluation strategies, and assess them with a common set of criteria for internal validity, the foremost goal of an ex post evaluation. In some cases, we also provide some concrete illustrations of how internally valid causal estimates can be supplemented with specific structural assumptions to address external validity: the estimate from an internally valid "experimental" estimate can be viewed as a leading term in an extrapolation for a parameter of interest in an ex ante evaluation.

Keywords: Regression Discontinuity Design; program evaluation; heterogeneous treatment effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C10 C50 C52 H00 I00 J00 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Chapter: Program Evaluation and Research Designs (2011)
Working Paper: Program Evaluation and Research Designs (2010)
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