scholarly journals The sooner the better: lives saved by the lockdown during the COVID-19 outbreak. The case of Italy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Cerqueti ◽  
Raffaella Coppier ◽  
Alessandro Girardi ◽  
Marco Ventura
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Rate ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Western Country ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Empirical Point ◽  
Pharmaceutical Interventions

Summary This paper estimates the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions – mainly, the lockdown – on the COVID-19 mortality rate for the case of Italy, the first Western country to impose a national shelter-in-place order. We use a new estimator, the augmented synthetic control method (ASCM), that overcomes some limits of the standard synthetic control method (SCM). The results are twofold. From a methodological point of view, the ASCM outperforms the SCM in that the latter cannot select a valid donor set, assigning all the weights to only one country (Spain) while placing zero weights to all the remaining. From an empirical point of view, we find strong evidence of the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in avoiding losses of human lives in Italy: conservative estimates indicate that the policy saved in total more than 21,000 human lives.

Applying Synthetic Control Method to Estimate the Impact of the Lava Jato Operation on the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 2631309X2110178
Author(s):  
Eduardo Carvalho Nepomuceno Alencar ◽  
Bryant Jackson-Green
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Governance Indicators ◽  
Regulatory Quality ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Control Of Corruption

In 2014, the most prominent anti-corruption investigation in Latin America called Lava Jato, exposed a Brazilian corruption scheme with reverberations in 61 countries, resulting in legal judgments for nearly 5 billion USD in reimbursements thus far. This article applies the synthetic control method on data from 135 countries (2002–2018) to test the hypothesis that Lava Jato impacts the Worldwide Governance Indicators in Brazil. The findings reveal that Lava Jato negatively affects control of corruption, the rule of law, and regulatory quality. There are signs of possible improvement in at least the corruption and the rule of law measures. This paper brings value to the criminological body of literature, notably lacking in the Global South.

scholarly journals When is a Match Sufficient? A Score-based Balance Metric for the Synthetic Control Method

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-228
Author(s):  
Layla Parast ◽  
Priscillia Hunt ◽  
Beth Ann Griffin ◽  
David Powell
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Control Unit ◽  
Treated Group ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Donor Pool ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Impact

AbstractIn some applications, researchers using the synthetic control method (SCM) to evaluate the effect of a policy may struggle to determine whether they have identified a “good match” between the control group and treated group. In this paper, we demonstrate the utility of the mean and maximum Absolute Standardized Mean Difference (ASMD) as a test of balance between a synthetic control unit and treated unit, and provide guidance on what constitutes a poor fit when using a synthetic control. We explore and compare other potential metrics using a simulation study. We provide an application of our proposed balance metric to the 2013 Los Angeles (LA) Firearm Study [9]. Using Uniform Crime Report data, we apply the SCM to obtain a counterfactual for the LA firearm-related crime rate based on a weighted combination of control units in a donor pool of cities. We use this counterfactual to estimate the effect of the LA Firearm Study intervention and explore the impact of changing the donor pool and pre-intervention duration period on resulting matches and estimated effects. We demonstrate how decision-making about the quality of a synthetic control can be improved by using ASMD. The mean and max ASMD clearly differentiate between poor matches and good matches. Researchers need better guidance on what is a meaningful imbalance between synthetic control and treated groups. In addition to the use of gap plots, the proposed balance metric can provide an objective way of determining fit.

scholarly journals Campaign Finance Regulations and Public Policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
MARTIN GILENS ◽  
SHAWN PATTERSON ◽  
PAVIELLE HAINES
Keyword(s):  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Citizens United ◽  
Independent Expenditures ◽  
American Elections ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Despite a century of efforts to constrain money in American elections, there is little consensus on whether campaign finance regulations make any appreciable difference. Here we take advantage of a change in the campaign finance regulations of half of the U.S. states mandated by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This exogenously imposed change in the regulation of independent expenditures provides an advance over the identification strategies used in most previous studies. Using a generalized synthetic control method, we find that after Citizens United, states that had previously banned independent corporate expenditures (and thus were “treated” by the decision) adopted more “corporate-friendly” policies on issues with broad effects on corporations’ welfare; we find no evidence of shifts on policies with little or no effect on corporate welfare. We conclude that even relatively narrow changes in campaign finance regulations can have a substantively meaningful influence on government policy making.

scholarly journals The effect of an electricity tax on aggregate electricity consumption: evidence from Basel

2020 ◽  
Vol 156 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Krebs ◽  
Simon Luechinger
Keyword(s):  
Price Elasticity ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Electricity Consumption ◽  
Weighted Average ◽  
Synthetic Control ◽  
Hypothetical Situation ◽  
Electricity Prices ◽  
Synthetic Control Method ◽  
Insignificant Effect

AbstractWe estimate the effect of an electricity tax on aggregate electricity consumption with the synthetic control method. The tax was introduced in the Swiss city of Basel in 1999 and, together with other tariff changes, increased marginal electricity prices by 5.4–8.0%. We compare the actual and a hypothetical electricity consumption in the years 1999–2006. The latter is a weighted average of electricity consumption in other Swiss cities and captures the hypothetical situation without the tax. We find a statistically insignificant effect of the tax increase of − 2.7 to − 1.9%, which implies a rather small, but not unreasonable, price elasticity of between − 0.5 and − 0.2. Ambiguous effects on average prices and an unfortunate communication by officials may explain why the innovative reform failed to induce a stronger response.

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