Search Results
Working Paper
Forecasted Treatment Effects
We consider estimation and inference about the effects of a policy in the absence of a control group. We obtain unbiased estimators of individual (heterogeneous) treatment effects and a consistent and asymptotically normal estimator of the average treatment effects, based on forecasting counterfactuals using a short time series of pre-treatment data. We show that the focus should be on forecast unbiasedness rather than accuracy. Correct specification of the forecasting model is not necessary to obtain unbiased estimates of the individual treatment effects. Instead, simple basis function ...