Readings

  1. Event studies
    New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021.
    Scott Cunningham
    (only read Section 9.4, “Providing Evidence for Parallel Trends Through Event Studies and Parallel Leads”)

  2. Comparative Politics and the Synthetic Control Method
    American Journal of Political Science, 2015, 495-510.
    Alberto Abadie, Alexis Diamond, and Jens Hainmueller

  3. Causal Inference: The Mixtape
    New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021.
    Scott Cunningham
    (Chapter 10: Synthetic Control)

Further event study references

Using event studies in practice:

  1. An Introductory Guide to Event Study Models
    Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2023, 203-230.
    Douglas L. Miller

Further synthetic control references

Using synthetic control in practice:

  1. Using Synthetic Controls: Feasibility, Data Requirements, and Methodological Aspects
    Journal of Economic Literature, 2021, 391-425.
    Alberto Abadie

The two classic papers that introduced synthetic control:

  1. The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country
    American Economic Review, 2003, 113-132.
    Alberto Abadie and Javier Gardeazabal

  2. Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program
    Journal of the American Statistical Association, 2010, 493-505.
    Alberto Abadie, Alexis Diamond, and Jens Hainmueller

Recent methdodological approaches to synthetic control:

  1. Generalized Sythetic Control Method: Causal Inference with Interactive Fixed Effects Models
    Political Analysis, 2017, 57-76.
    Yiqing Xu
    (as implemented in the gsynth R library)

  2. Matrix Completion Methods for Causal Panel Data Models
    Journal of the American Statistical Association, Forthcoming.
    Susan Athey, Mohsen Bayati, Nikolay Doudchenko, Guido Imbens, and Khashayar Khorsravi
    (the gsynth R library now implements this, and is likely what you will want to use)

Synthetic control examples in political science:

  1. Campaign Finance Regulations and Public Policy
    American Political Science Review, 2021, 1243-1255.
    Martin Gilens, Shawn Petterson Jr., and Pavielle Haines

  2. Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? The Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Behaviors and Attitudes
    American Political Science Review, 2021, 1111-1128.
    Ala’ Alrababa’h, William Marble, Salma Mousa, and Alexandra Siegel

  3. The Environmental Costs of Civil War: A Synthetic Comparison of the Congolese Forests with and without the Great War of Africa
    Journal of Politics, 2021, 1243-1255.
    Kyosuke Kikuta

  4. Do Voters Polarize When Radical Parties Enter Parliament?
    American Journal of Political Science, 2019, 888-904.
    Daniel Bischof and Markus Wagner

  5. The Real Consequences of Symbolic Politics
    Journal of Politics, Forthcoming.
    Arturas Rozenas and Anastasiia Vlasenko

In-class exercise

R code for exercise: here
Data for exercise: here