In this week’s episode, Greg and Patrick discuss the decades-old method of the regression discontinuity design and describe how, when properly applied, this approach can strengthen our causal inferences when using quasi-experimental data. Along the way they also discuss Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor, playing barefoot darts, gaming the system, I see dead people, Googling age cut-offs, Van Halen’s “Jump”, Zoom calls in class, senior discount day, pivots, building saddles, biggest guy in the bar, grunting tennis players, refusing a raise, when the cops show up, and the ninth step.
Related Episodes
- S3E10: Observation and Exploration
- S3E01: Leaping to Statistical Conclusion Validity
- S1E26: The Internal Validity Pre-Flight Checklist
Recommended Readings
Cattaneo, M. D., & Titiunik, R. (2022). Regression discontinuity designs. Annual Review of Economics, 14, 821-851.
Hahn, J., Todd, P., & Van der Klaauw, W. (2001). Identification and estimation of treatment effects with a regression-discontinuity design. Econometrica, 69, 201-209.
Imbens, G. W., & Lemieux, T. (2008). Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice. Journal of Econometrics, 142, 615–635.
Soland, J., Johnson, A., & Talbert, E. (2023). Regression discontinuity designs in a latent variable framework. Psychological Methods, 28, 691.
Thistlethwaite, D. L., & Campbell, D. T. (1960). Regression-discontinuity analysis: An alternative to the ex post facto experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 51, 309.