Quantitative Economics

Journal Of The Econometric Society

Edited by: Stéphane Bonhomme • Print ISSN: 1759-7323 • Online ISSN: 1759-7331

Quantitative Economics: Nov, 2024, Volume 15, Issue 4

Design-Robust Two-Way-Fixed-Effects Regression For Panel Data

https://doi.org/10.3982/QE1962
p. 999-1034

Dmitry Arkhangelsky|Guido W. Imbens|Lihua Lei|Xiaoman Luo

We propose a new estimator for average causal effects of a binary treatment with panel data in settings with general treatment patterns. Our approach augments the popular two‐way‐fixed‐effects specification with unit‐specific weights that arise from a model for the assignment mechanism. We show how to construct these weights in various settings, including the staggered adoption setting, where units opt into the treatment sequentially but permanently. The resulting estimator converges to an average (over units and time) treatment effect under the correct specification of the assignment model, even if the fixed‐ effect model is misspecified. We show that our estimator is more robust than the conventional two‐way estimator: it remains consistent if either the assignment mechanism or the two‐way regression model is correctly specified. In addition, the proposed estimator performs better than the two‐way‐fixed‐effect estimator if the outcome model and assignment mechanism are locally misspecified. This strong robustness property underlines and quantifies the benefits of modeling the assignment process and motivates using our estimator in practice. We also discuss an extension of our estimator to handle dynamic treatment effects.


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Supplemental Material

Supplement to "Design-Robust Two-Way-Fixed-Effects Regression For Panel Data"

Dmitry Arkhangelsky, Guido W. Imbens, Lihua Lei and Xiaoman Luo

Supplemental Appendix

Supplement to "Design-Robust Two-Way-Fixed-Effects Regression For Panel Data"

Dmitry Arkhangelsky, Guido W. Imbens, Lihua Lei and Xiaoman Luo

The replication package for this paper is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12637091. The Journal checked the data and codes included in the package for their ability to reproduce the results in the paper and approved online appendices.

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