Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Nov, 2023, Volume 91, Issue 6

Nonrandom Exposure to Exogenous Shocks

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA19367
p. 2155-2185

Kirill Borusyak, Peter Hull

We develop a new approach to estimating the causal effects of treatments or instruments that combine multiple sources of variation according to a known formula. Examples include treatments capturing spillovers in social or transportation networks and simulated instruments for policy eligibility. We show how exogenous shocks to some—but not all—determinants of such variables can be leveraged while avoiding omitted variables bias. Our solution involves specifying counterfactual shocks that may as well have been realized and adjusting for a summary measure of nonrandomness in shock exposure: the average treatment (or instrument) across shock counterfactuals. We use this approach to address bias when estimating employment effects of market access growth from Chinese high‐speed rail construction.


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Supplemental Material

Supplement to "Non-Random Exposure to Exogenous Shocks"

Kirill Borusyak and Peter Hull

The replication package for this paper is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8286785. The Journal checked the data and codes included in the package for their ability to reproduce the results in the paper and approved online appendices.