Propensity score matching is widely used in treatment evaluation to estimate average treatment effects. Nevertheless, the role of the propensity score is still controversial. Since the propensity score is usually unknown and has to be estimated, the efficiency loss arising from not knowing the...

We introduce a nonparametric estimator for local quantile treatment effects in the regression discontinuity (RD) design. The procedure uses local distribution regression to estimate the marginal distributions of the potential outcomes. We illustrate the procedure through Monte Carlo simulations...

This paper shows nonparametric identification of quantile treatment effects (QTE) in the regression discontinuity design. The distributional impacts of social programs such as welfare, education, training programs and unemployment insurance are of large interest to economists. QTE are an...

In this paper nonparametric instrumental variable estimation of local average treatment effects (LATE) is extended to incorporate confounding covariates. Estimation of local average treatment effects is appealing since their identification relies on much weaker assumptions than the...

Propensity score matching is widely used in treatment evaluation to estimate average treatment effects. Nevertheless, the role of the propensity score is still controversial. Since the propensity score is usually unknown and has to be estimated, the efficiency loss arising from not knowing the...

This paper reviews the main identification and estimation strategies for microeconomic policy evaluation. Particular emphasis is laid on evaluating policies consisting of multiple programmes, which is of high relevance in practice. For example, active labour market policies may consist of...

Choosing among a number of available treatments the most suitable for a given subject is an issue of everyday concern. A physician has to choose an appropriate drug treatment or medical treatment for a given patient, based on a number of observed covariates X and prior experience. A case worker...

This note argues that nonparametric regression not only relaxes functional form assumptions vis-a-vis parametric regression, but that it also permits endogenous control variables. To control for selection bias or to make an exclusion restriction in instrumental variables regression valid,...

This paper shows nonparametric identification of quantile treatment effects (QTE) in the regression discontinuity design (RDD) and proposes simple estimators. Quantile treatment effects are a very helpful tool to characterize the effects of certain interventions on the outcome distribution. The...

Traditional instrumental variable estimators do not generally estimate effects for the treated population but for the unobserved population of compliers. They do identify effects for the treated when there is one-sided perfect non-compliance. However, this property is lost when covariates are...