Westminster Applied Evaluation Workshop

A series of seminars organised by Policy Studies Institute and
the Centre for Employment Research

session two: 17 December 2009

Ineligibles and eligible non-participants as a double comparison group in regression-discontinuity designs

Professor Erich Battistin (University of Padova)

Abstract

In a sharp regression-discontinuity design (RDD), the participation status deterministically depends on whether a preprogramme characteristic is above or below a specified threshold. The attractiveness of such a design rests on close similarities with a formal experiment.

Nevertheless, it is of limited applicability since participation into a programme is seldom determined according to this rule. Besides, in the presence of heterogeneous effects, a sharp RDD only allows identification of mean effects for individuals around the threshold for participation.

Two results are presented in this paper, and they both partially overcome the two limitations described above. We show that, when individuals self-select into participation conditional on some eligibility criteria, a sharp RDD provides a natural framework to define a specification test for the non-experimental estimation of programme effects for participants away from the threshold.

We also show that, in this set-up, the regularity conditions required for the identification of the mean counterfactual outcome for participants marginally eligible for the programme are essentially the same as in a sharp RDD.

Paper

The research report is available here [pdf].

Venue:

The seminar will take place from 4pm to 6pm on Thursday 17 December in the Fyvie Hall Lecture Theatre of the University of Westminster in its historic building at 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW (nearest Underground: Oxford Circus).

See Streetmap.

Further information

Please contact Stefan Speckesser.