Journal
ANNALS OF APPLIED STATISTICS
Volume 2, Issue 3, Pages 808-840Publisher
INST MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS
DOI: 10.1214/08-AOAS187
Keywords
Average causal effect; causal effects; complier average causal effect; instrumental variables; noncompliance; observational studies; propensity scores; randomized experiments; Rubin Causal Model
Categories
Funding
- NSF [SES-05-50887]
- NIH [R01 DA023879-01]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
For obtaining causal inferences that are objective, and therefore have the best chance of revealing scientific truths, carefully designed and executed randomized experiments are generally considered to be the gold standard. Observational studies, in contrast, are generally fraught with problems that compromise any claim for objectivity of the resulting causal inferences. The thesis here is that observational studies have to be carefully designed to approximate randomized experiments, in particular, without examining any final outcome data. Often a candidate data set will have to be rejected as made in the distributions of key covariates between treatment and control groups, often revealed by careful propensity score analyses. Sometimes the template for the approximating randomized experiments will have to be altered, and the use of principal stratification can be helpful in doing this. These issues are discussed and illustrated using the framework of potential outcomes to define causal effects, which greatly clarifies critical issues.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available