New Evidence on the Finite Sample Properties of Propensity Score Reweighting and Matching Estimators

A-Tier
Journal: Review of Economics and Statistics
Year: 2014
Volume: 96
Issue: 5
Pages: 885-897

Authors (3)

Matias Busso (Inter-American Development Ban...) John DiNardo (not in RePEc) Justin McCrary (not in RePEc)

Score contribution per author:

1.341 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Fr�lich (2004) compares the finite sample properties of reweighting and matching estimators of average treatment effects and concludes that reweighting performs far worse than even the simplest matching estimator. We argue that this conclusion is unjustified. Neither approach dominates the other uniformly across data-generating processes (DGPs). Expanding on Fr�lich's analysis, this paper analyzes empirical as well as hypothetical DGPs and also examines the effect of misspecification. We conclude that reweighting is competitive with the most effective matching estimators when overlap is good, but that matching may be more effective when overlap is sufficiently poor.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:tpr:restat:v:96:y:2014:i:5:p:885-897
Journal Field
General
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-25