The Microeconometric Estimation of Treatment Effects - an Overview

24 Pages Posted: 21 Jul 2005

See all articles by Marco Caliendo

Marco Caliendo

University of Potsdam; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Reinhard Hujer

University of Frankfurt; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Date Written: July 2005

Abstract

The need to evaluate the performance of active labour market policies is not questioned any longer. Even though OECD countries spend significant shares of national resources on these measures, unemployment rates remain high or even increase. We focus on microeconometric evaluation which has to solve the fundamental evaluation problem and overcome the possible occurrence of selection bias. When using non-experimental data, different evaluation approaches can be thought of. The aim of this paper is to review the most relevant estimators, discuss their identifying assumptions and their (dis-)advantages. Thereby we will present estimators based on some form of exogeneity (selection on observables) as well as estimators where selection might also occur on unobservable characteristics. Since the possible occurrence of effect heterogeneity has become a major topic in evaluation research in recent years, we will also assess the ability of each estimator to deal with it. Additionally, we will also discuss some recent extensions of the static evaluation framework to allow for dynamic treatment evaluation.

Keywords: evaluation, effect heterogeneity, matching, dynamic treatments

JEL Classification: C40, H43, J68

Suggested Citation

Caliendo, Marco and Hujer, Reinhard, The Microeconometric Estimation of Treatment Effects - an Overview (July 2005). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=758344 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.758344

Marco Caliendo (Contact Author)

University of Potsdam ( email )

August-Bebel Strasse 89
Potsdam, 14482
Germany
+49(0)331/9773225 (Phone)
+49(0)331/9773210 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/empwifo/news.html

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Reinhard Hujer

University of Frankfurt ( email )

Institute for Statistics and Econometrics
60054 Frankfurt
Germany
+49 798 23673 (Fax)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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