Resources

While the bulk of the course is outlining the theory behind each causal inference technique, the course does not aspire to be an abstract exercise. For each topic, I’ve tried to introduce real world studies that utilize at least one of the five techniques introduced in the course. If you feel they have been inadequate to give you a good grasp of the core concepts, I have appended below many exceptional and also easy to follow research papers that will improve your understanding.

Randomized Experiment

Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, (2009). “The Experimental Approach to Development Economics,” Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 151-178, 05.
Angrist, J. D. & Lavy, V. C. (2002). The effect of high school matriculation awards – Evidence from randomized trials,” NBER Working Paper 9389, December.
Babcock, J. C., Green, C. E., & Robie, C. (2004). Does batterer’s treatment work? A meta-analytic review of domestic violence treatment. Clinical Psychology Review, 23, 1023-1053.
Banerjee, Abhijit, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster, and Cynthia Kinnan. (2015). “The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 7(1): 22-53.
Bertrand, Marianne and Sendhil Mullainathan, “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination,” American Economic Review, 94(4), 2004, 991-1013.
Black, Dan A., Jeffrey A. Smith, Mark C. Berger, and Brett J. Noel. (2003). “Is the Threat of Reemployment Services More Effective Than the Services Themselves? Evidence from Random Assignment in the UI System.” American Economic Review, 93(4): 1313–27.
Boruch, R., De Moya, D. & Snyder, B. (2002). The importance of randomized field trials in education and related areas. In F. Mosteller & R. Boruch (Eds.), Evidence matters: randomized trials in education research. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Farrington, D. P. & Welsh, B. C. (2005). Randomized experiments in criminology: What have we learned in the last two decades? Journal of Experimental Criminology 1, 9–38.
Farrington, D. P. (1983). Randomized experiments on crime and justice. In M. H. Tonry & N. Morris (Eds.), Crime and justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Finkelstein, Amy et al “The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. August 2012. Vol 127(3).
Manning, Willard G. et al (1998) Health Insurance and the Demand for Medical Care: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Rubin, D. B. (1974). Estimating causal effects of treatments in randomized and non-randomized studies. Journal of Educational Psychology 66, 688–701.
Weisburd, D. L. (2003). Ethical practice and evaluation of interventions in crime and justice: The moral imperative for randomized trials. Evaluation Review 27(3), 336–354.
Woodbury, S. A. & Spiegelman, R. G. (1987). Bonuses to workers and employers to reduce unemployment: Randomized trials in Illinois. American Economic Review 77(4), 513–530.

Controlled Regression

Angrist, J. D. (1998). “Estimating the Labor Market Impact of Voluntary Military Service Using Social Security Data on Military Applicants,” Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(2), pages 249-288.
B. Krueger, Alan & Berg Dale, Stacy. (2002). Estimating The Payoff To Attending A More Selective College: An Application Of Selection On Observables And Unobservables. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 117. 1491-1527.
Brewer, Dominic, Eric Eide and Ronald Ehrenberg, “Does it Pay to Attend an Elite College? Cross Cohort Evidence on the Effects of College Type on Earnings,” Journal of Human Resources 34 (1), Winter 1999, pp. 104-23.
Fisman, Ray and Edward Miguel, “Corruption, Norms and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets,”September 2007, Journal of Political Economy.
Sacerdote, Bruce, “How Large Are the Effects from Changes in Family Environment? A Study of Korean American Adoptees,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(1), 2007,119-157.

Instrumental Variables

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. 2001. “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review, 91 (5): 1369-1401.
Angrist, J. D. & Imbens, G. W. (1995). Two-stage least squares estimates of average causal effects in models with variable treatment intensity. Journal of the American Statistical Association 90(430), 431–442.
Angrist, J. D. & Krueger, A. B. (2001). Instrumental variables and the search for identification. Journal of Economic Perspectives 15(4), 69–86.
Angrist, J. D. (1990), “Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records,” American Economic Review 80, 313–336.
Angrist, J. D., and A. B. Krueger (1991), “Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?” Quarterly Journal of Economics 106, 979–1014.
Angrist, J. D., Imbens, G. W. & Rubin, D. B. (1996). Identification of causal effects using instrumental variables. Journal of the American Statistical Association 91(434), 444–455.
Angrist, J.D., (2005). “Instrumental Variables Methods in Experimental Criminological Research: What, Why, and How?” NBER Technical Working Papers 0314, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Angrist, J.D., and W.N. Evans, “Children and Their Parents’ Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size,” American Economic Review, 88(3), 1998, 450-477.
Berk, R. A. & Sherman, L. W. (1988). Police response to family violence incidents: An analysis of an experimental design with incomplete randomization. Journal of the American Statistical Association 83(401), 70–76.
Berk, R. A., Smyth, G. K. & Sherman, L. W. (1988). When random assignment fails: Some lessons from the Minneapolis spouse abuse experiment. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 4(3), 209–223.
Bloom, H. S. (1984). Accounting for no-shows in experimental evaluation designs. Evaluation Review 8(2), 225–246.
Card, D. (1995), “Using Geographic Variation in College Proximity to Estimate the Return to Schooling,” in Aspects of Labour Market Behavior: Essays in Honour of John Vanderkamp, ed. L. N. Christophides, E. K. Grant, and R. Swidinsky, 201–222. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Hotz, Joseph, Susan Williams McElroy and Seth Sanders, “Teenage Childbearing and Its Lifecycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment.” Journal of Human Resources, 2005, 40(3): 683-715.
Imbens, G. W. & Angrist, J. D. (1994). Identification and estimation of local average treatment effects. Econometrica 62(2), 467–475.
Levitt, S. D. (1997). Using electoral cycles in police hiring to estimate the effects of police on crime. American Economic Review 87(3), 270–290.
Snow Jones, A. & Gondolf, E. (2002). Assessing the effect of batterer program completion on reassault: An instrumental variables analysis. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 18, 71–98.
W.G. Howell, et al., “Test Score Effects of School Vouchers in Dayton, Ohio, New York City and Washington, DC: Evidence from Randomized Field Trials,” August 2000.

Regression Discontinuity

Angrist, J.D., V. Lavy, “Using Maimonides’ Rule to Estimate the Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement, “Quarterly Journal of Economics, 114(2), 1999, 533-575.
Black, S., 1999, Do Better Schools Matter? Parental Valuation of Elementary Education, Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, 577-599.
Card, D., C. Dobkin and N. Maestas, 2004, The Impact of Nearly Universal Insurance Coverage on Health Care Utilization and Health: Evidence from Medicare, NBER Working Paper No. 10365.
Card, David, Carlos Dobkin and Nicole Maestas, “Does Medicare Save Lives?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2009, 124(2), 597-636.
D. Cook, Thomas. (2008). “Waiting for Life to Arrive”: A history of the regression-discontinuity design in Psychology, Statistics and Economics. Journal of Econometrics. 142. 636-654.
Dan A. Black & Jose Galdo & Jeffrey A. Smith, 2007. “Evaluating the Worker Profiling and Reemployment Services System Using a Regression Discontinuity Approach,” American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 104-107, May.
Elder, Todd and Darren Lubotsky, “Kindergarten Entrance Age and Children’s Achievement: Impacts of State Policies, Family Background, and Peers,” Journal of Human Resources, 2009, 44(3): 641-683.
DiNardo, J., and D.S. Lee, 2004, Economic Impacts of New Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984-2001, Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, 1383-1441.
Hahn, J., P. Todd and W. Van der Klaauw, 1999, Evaluating the Effect of an Anti Discrimination Law Using a Regression-Discontinuity Design, NBER Working Paper 7131.
Hahn, J., P. Todd and W. Van der Klaauw, 2001, Identification and Estimation of Treatment Effects with a Regression Discontinuity Design, Econometrica 69, 201-209.
Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. “Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice,” Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635.
Jacob, B.A., and L. Lefgren, 2004, Remedial Education and Student Achievement: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis, Review of Economics and Statistics 68, 226-244.
Lee, D.S., Moretti, E., and M. Butler, 2004, Do Voters Affect or Elect Policies? Evidence from the U.S. House, Quarterly Journal of Economics 119, 807-859.
Ludwig, J., and D. Miller, 2007, Does Head Start Improve Children’s Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design, Quarterly Journal of Economics 122(1), 159-208.
Matsudaria, Jordan, “Mandatory Summer School and Student Achievement: A Regression Discontinuity Approach.” Journal of Econometrics, 2008, 142(2): 829-850.
Thistlewaite, D., and D. Campbell, 1960, Regression-Discontinuity Analysis: An Alternative to the Ex-Post Facto Experiment, Journal of Educational Psychology 51, 309-317.
Van Der Klaauw, W., 2002, Estimating the Effect of Financial Aid Offers on College Enrollment: A Regression discontinuity Approach, International Economic Review 43, 1249-1287.

Difference-in-Differences

Acemogulu, D. and Angrist, J. D. (2001), “Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act”, Journal of Political Economy, 109, 915–957.
Almond, D., K. Chay, D. Lee, “The Costs of Low Birth Weight,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 120, 2005, 1031-1084.
Ashenfelter, O. (1978), “Estimating the Effect of Training Programs on Earnings”, Review of Economics and Statistics, 60, 47–57.
Ashenfelter, O. and Card, D. (1985), “Using the Longitudinal Structure of Earnings to Estimate the Effects of Training Programs”, Review of Economics and Statistics, 67, 648–660.
Ashenfelter, Orley C, 1978. “Estimating the Effect of Training Programs on Earnings,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(1), pages 47-57, February.
Ayres, Ian and Steven Levitt, “Measuring Positive Externalities from Unobserved Victim Precaution: An Empirical Analysis of Lojak,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(3),2000, 755-789.
Bertrand, Marianne & Duflo, Esther & Mullainathan, Sendhil. (2003). How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 119. pp. 249-275.
Card, D. (1990), “The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labour Market”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 44, 245–257.
Card, D. (1992), “Do Minimum Wages Reduce Employment? A Case Study of California, 1987–1989”, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 46, 38–54.
Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania,” American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
Donald, Stephen, and Kevin Lang, “Inferences with Difference in Differences and Other Panel Data,” Working Paper, Boston University, 2001.
Duflo, Esther. “Schooling And Labor Market Consequences Of School Construction In Indonesia: Evidence From An Unusual Policy Experiment,” American Economic Review, 2001, v91(4,Sep), 795-813.
Galiani, Sebastian & Gertler, Paul & Schargrodsky, Ernesto. (2005). Water for Life: The Impact of the Privatization of Water Services on Child Mortality. Journal of Political Economy. 113. 83-120.
Geronimus, A., and S. Korenman, “The Socioeconomic Consequences of Teen Childbearing Reconsidered,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1992, 1187-1213.
Linden, Leigh L. and Jonah Rockoff. “Estimates of the Impact of Crime Risk on Property Values from Megan’s Laws.” American Economic Review 2008, 98(3): 1103-27.
Meyer, B. D., Viscusi, W. K. & Durbin, D. L. (1995), “Worker’s Compensation and Injury Duration: Evidence from a Natural Experiment”, American Economic Review, 85, 322–340.