st: recent addition to RePEc

[Christopher Baum <baum@bc.edu>]

< >
This may be of interest to some:

Alternative Approaches to Evaluation in Empirical Microeconomics
Date:
2008-10
By:
Richard Blundell (University College London and Institute for Fiscal  
Studies)
Mónica Costa Dias (CETE, Faculdade de Economia - Universidade do Porto  
and Institute for Fiscal Studies)
URL:
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:cetedp:0805&r=ecm

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 estimat! ion  
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.
JEL:
J21 J64 C33

Although not mentioned in the paper, the Stata datasets and do-files  
are freely downloadable from

http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications.php?publication_id=4326


Kit Baum, Boston College Economics and DIW Berlin
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba1.html
An Introduction to Modern Econometrics Using Stata:
http://www.stata-press.com/books/imeus.html


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