This paper analyzes monotone comparative statics predictions in several classes of stochastic optimization problems. The main results characterize necessary and sufficient conditions for comparative statics predictions to hold based on properties of primitive functions, that is, utility...

This paper analyzes the role of private information in U.S. Forest Service timber auctions. In these auctions, firms bid a per unit price for each timber species. Total bids are computed by multiplying these prices by Forest Service volume estimates, but payments depend on actual volumes...

In Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs for evaluating causal effects of interventions, assignment to a treatment is determined at least partly by the value of an observed covariate lying on either side of a fixed threshold. These designs were first introduced in the evaluation literature by...

Many empirical questions in economics and other social sciences depend on causal effects of programs or policies. In the last two decades, much research has been done on the econometric and statistical analysis of such causal effects. This recent theoretical literature has built on, and combined...

Estimation of average treatment effects under unconfounded or ignorable treatment assignment is often hampered by lack of overlap in the covariate distributions between treatment groups. This lack of overlap can lead to imprecise estimates, and can make commonly used estimators sensitive to the...

In this paper, we explore Bayesian inference in models with many instrumental variables that are potentially weakly correlated with the endogenous regressor. The prior distribution has a hierarchical (nested) structure. We apply the methods to the Angrist-Krueger (AK, 1991) analysis of returns...

In this paper we develop two nonparametric tests of treatment effect heterogeneity. The first test is for the null hypothesis that the treatment has a zero average effect for all subpopulations defined by covariates. The second test is for the null hypothesis that the average effect conditional...

The paper evaluates the usefulness of a nonparametric approach to Bayesian inference by presenting two applications. The approach is due to Ferguson (1973, 1974) and Rubin (1981). Our first application considers an educational choice problem. We focus on obtaining a predictive distribution for...

Matching estimators are widely used in empirical economics for the evaluation of programs or treatments. Researchers using matching methods often apply the bootstrap to calculate the standard errors. However, no formal justification has been provided for the use of the bootstrap in this setting....