Isolation in the construction of natural experiments
From MaRDI portal
Abstract: A natural experiment is a type of observational study in which treatment assignment, though not randomized by the investigator, is plausibly close to random. A process that assigns treatments in a highly nonrandom, inequitable manner may, in rare and brief moments, assign aspects of treatments at random or nearly so. Isolating those moments and aspects may extract a natural experiment from a setting in which treatment assignment is otherwise quite biased, far from random. Isolation is a tool that focuses on those rare, brief instances, extracting a small natural experiment from otherwise useless data. We discuss the theory behind isolation and illustrate its use in a reanalysis of a well-known study of the effects of fertility on workforce participation. Whether a woman becomes pregnant at a certain moment in her life and whether she brings that pregnancy to term may reflect her aspirations for family, education and career, the degree of control she exerts over her fertility, and the quality of her relationship with the father; moreover, these aspirations and relationships are unlikely to be recorded with precision in surveys and censuses, and they may confound studies of workforce participation. However, given that a women is pregnant and will bring the pregnancy to term, whether she will have twins or a single child is, to a large extent, simply luck. Given that a woman is pregnant at a certain moment, the differential comparison of two types of pregnancies on workforce participation, twins or a single child, may be close to randomized, not biased by unmeasured aspirations. In this comparison, we find in our case study that mothers of twins had more children but only slightly reduced workforce participation, approximately 5% less time at work for an additional child.
Recommendations
- Time-series estimation of the effects of natural experiments
- A random shock is not random assignment
- Evidence of randomisation bias in a large-scale social experiment: the case of ERA
- The effects of child-bearing on women's marital status: Using twin births as a natural experiment
- Decomposing Treatment Effect Variation
Cites work
- scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1487684 (Why is no real title available?)
- scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3385132 (Why is no real title available?)
- Amplification of sensitivity analysis in matched observational studies
- Assessing the Sensitivity of Regression Results to Unmeasured Confounders in Observational Studies
- Balanced Risk Set Matching
- Building a stronger instrument in an observational study of perinatal care for premature infants
- Calibrating sensitivity analyses to observed covariates in observational studies
- Design of observational studies
- Differential effects and generic biases in observational studies
- Identification of Causal Effects Using Instrumental Variables
- Impact of Multiple Matched Controls on Design Sensitivity in Observational Studies
- Matching methods for causal inference: a review and a look forward
- On Estimation of the Survivor Average Causal Effect in Observational Studies When Important Confounders Are Missing Due to Death
- Propensity Score Matching with Time‐Dependent Covariates
- Robust, Accurate Confidence Intervals with a Weak Instrument: Quarter of Birth and Education
- Sensitivity Analysis for Instrumental Variables Regression With Overidentifying Restrictions
- Sensitivity Analysis for m‐Estimates, Tests, and Confidence Intervals in Matched Observational Studies
- Sensitivity analysis for certain permutation inferences in matched observational studies
- Sensitivity analysis for trend tests: application to the risk of radiation exposure
- Stronger instruments via integer programming in an observational study of late preterm birth outcomes
- The sensitivity of linear regression coefficients' confidence limits to the omission of a confounder
- Unified methods for censored longitudinal data and causality
- Using mixed integer programming for matching in an observational study of kidney failure after surgery
- War and Wages
Cited in
(7)- So many choices: a guide to selecting among methods to adjust for observed confounders
- Building Representative Matched Samples With Multi-Valued Treatments in Large Observational Studies
- Matching with time-dependent treatments: a review and look forward
- A random shock is not random assignment
- Comparing Covariate Prioritization via Matching to Machine Learning Methods for Causal Inference Using Five Empirical Applications
- How strong is strong enough? Strengthening instruments through matching and weak instrument tests
- The effects of child-bearing on women's marital status: Using twin births as a natural experiment
This page was built for publication: Isolation in the construction of natural experiments
Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2258562)
