The matching method for treatment evaluation does not balance selective unobserved differences between treated and non-treated. We derive a simple correction term if there is an instrument that shifts the treatment probability to zero in specific cases. Within the same framework we also suggest...

This paper presents a life-cycle model of woman's labour supply, human capital formation and savings for the evaluation of welfare-to-work and tax policies. Women's decisions are formalised in a dynamic and uncertain environment. The model includes a detailed characterisation of the tax system...

This paper reviews a range of the most popular policy evaluation methods in empirical microeconomics: social experiments, natural experiments, matching methods, instrumental variables, discontinuity design and control functions. It discusses the identification of both the traditionally used...

We consider the problem of choosing two bandwidths simultaneously for estimating the difference of two functions at given points. When the asymptotic approximation of the mean squared error (AMSE) criterion is used, we show that minimisation problem is not well-defined when the sign of the...

We present a simple way to estimate the effects of changes in a vector of observable variables X on a limited dependent variable Y when Y is a general nonseparable function of X and unobservables. We treat models in which Y is censored from above or below or potentially from both. The basic idea...

Often semiparametric estimators are asymptotically equivalent to a sample average. The object being averaged is referred to as the influence function. The influence function is useful in formulating primitive regularity conditions for asymptotic normality, in efficiency comparions, for bias...

A new bandwidth selection rule that uses different bandwidths for the local linear regression estimators on the left and the right of the cut-off point is proposed for the sharp regression discontinuity estimator of the mean program impact at the cut-off point. The asymptotic mean squared error...