Identifying Causal Effects in Information Provision Experiments

Fuente: arXiv
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Autor principal: Balla-Elliott, Dylan
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2023
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author Balla-Elliott, Dylan
author_facet Balla-Elliott, Dylan
contents Standard estimators in information provision experiments place more weight on individuals who update their beliefs more in response to new information. This paper shows that, in practice, these individuals who update the most have the weakest causal effects of beliefs on outcomes. Standard estimators therefore understate these causal effects. I propose an alternative local least squares (LLS) estimator that recovers a representative unweighted average effect in a broad class of learning rate models that generalize Bayesian updating. I reanalyze six published studies. In five, estimates of the causal effects of beliefs on outcomes increase; in two, they more than double.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2309_11387
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Identifying Causal Effects in Information Provision Experiments
Balla-Elliott, Dylan
Econometrics
Standard estimators in information provision experiments place more weight on individuals who update their beliefs more in response to new information. This paper shows that, in practice, these individuals who update the most have the weakest causal effects of beliefs on outcomes. Standard estimators therefore understate these causal effects. I propose an alternative local least squares (LLS) estimator that recovers a representative unweighted average effect in a broad class of learning rate models that generalize Bayesian updating. I reanalyze six published studies. In five, estimates of the causal effects of beliefs on outcomes increase; in two, they more than double.
title Identifying Causal Effects in Information Provision Experiments
topic Econometrics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.11387