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Causal Inference Course

9 Synthetic control

9.1 Introduction

Nov 12 Slides.

Today we will introduce the idea of synthetic control. After class you should be able to:

  • Explain the intuition behind synthetic control
  • Understand how synthetic control relates to other causal inference methods

9.2 Lab

Nov 13 Slides

We review the main idea behind synthetic control as well as compare and contrast synthetic control with matching and difference-in-differences. We also dig deeper into how to select weights in synthetic control and review a worked out example to assess performance of the method.

9.3 Discussion

Nov 14 Slides.. Read Chapter 10 of the Causal Inference Mixtape Cunningham 2021

After class you should be able to:

  • Understand how to conduct a hypothesis test for estimates from a synthtic control analysis
  • Reason about how interference will affect estimates from a synthetic control analysis