Picking Winners: Measuring the Effectiveness of Selectively Placed Policy Interventions

Melinda Vigh and Chris Elbers
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Melinda Vigh: Tinbergen Institute

No 17-110/V, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: In practice, social and development interventions are often targeted at groups or individuals with the largest expected benefits. In such cases, treatment effects are usually affected by selection on unobservable factors. We show that modeling the process of selective intervention placement allows us to correct for this and identify the Average Treatment Effect using observational panel data. We illustrate the estimation method using simulated data, as well as, data on a large-scale sanitation intervention in Mozambique. Our results provide a useful tool for the assessment of targeted policy interventions, and inform decisions on their continuation or replication.

Keywords: Program evaluation; Selection effect; Correlated random coefficients (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D04 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-11-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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