KONFOUND: Stata module to quantify robustness of causal inferences

Kenneth A. Frank () and Ran Xu ()
Additional contact information
Kenneth A. Frank: Michigan State University
Ran Xu: Michigan State University

Statistical Software Components from Boston College Department of Economics

Abstract: Statistical methods that quantify the conditions necessary to alter inferences, also known as “sensitivity analysis,” are becoming increasingly important to a variety of quantitative sciences. A series of recent works by Frank et al. (2000, 2004, 2007, 2013) extends previous sensitivity analyses by considering the characteristics of omitted variables or unobserved cases that would change an inference if such variables or cases were observed. These analyses generate statements such as “an omitted variable would have to be correlated at xx with the predictor of interest (e.g., treatment) and outcome to invalidate an inference of a treatment effect.” Or “one would have to replace pp percent of the observed data with null hypothesis cases to invalidate the inference. We implement these recent developments of sensitivity analysis and provide modules to calculate these two robustness indices and generate such statements in Stata. In particular, konfound, pkonfound and mkonfound allow users to calculate the robustness of inferences for a user's own model, a single published study and multiple studies respectively.

Language: Stata
Requires: Stata version 13.1 and moss, matsort, indeplist from SSC (q.v.)
Keywords: konfound; sensitivity analysis; omitted variable; rubin causal model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-02-02, Revised 2025-03-11
Note: This module should be installed from within Stata by typing "ssc install konfound". The module is made available under terms of the GPL v3 (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt). Windows users should not attempt to download these files with a web browser.
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Downloads: (external link)
http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/k/konfound.ado program code (text/plain)
http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/k/konfound.sthlp help file (text/plain)
http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/m/mkonfound.ado program code (text/plain)
http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/m/mkonfound.sthlp help file (text/plain)
http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/p/pkonfound.ado program code (text/plain)
http://fmwww.bc.edu/repec/bocode/p/pkonfound.sthlp help file (text/plain)

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