Direct Estimation of Policy Impacts

41 Pages Posted: 22 Jul 2000 Last revised: 13 Mar 2023

See all articles by Hidehiko Ichimura

Hidehiko Ichimura

Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo

Christopher Taber

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); University of Wisconsin - Madison

Date Written: June 2000

Abstract

This paper specifies a general set of conditions under which the impacts of a policy can be identified using data generated under a different policy regime. We show that some of the policy impacts can be identified under relatively weak conditions on the data and structure of a model. Based on the identification results we develop estimators of policy impacts. We discuss a nonparametric method to implement the estimation but also discuss semiparametric methods in order to reduce the conditioning dimension. We then provide an empirical example of the impact of tuition subsidies using the ideas. While the framework used in this paper is fairly narrow, we believe this approach can be applied to a broad set of problems.

Suggested Citation

Ichimura, Hidehiko and Taber, Christopher R., Direct Estimation of Policy Impacts (June 2000). NBER Working Paper No. t0254, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=233733

Hidehiko Ichimura (Contact Author)

Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo ( email )

7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyo-ku
Tokyo 113-0033
Japan

Christopher R. Taber

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

University of Wisconsin - Madison ( email )

716 Langdon Street
Madison, WI 53706-1481
United States

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