Abstract
The term ‘treatment effect’ refers to the causal effect of a binary (0–1) variable on an outcome variable of scientific or policy interest. Economics examples include the effects of government programmes and policies, such as those that subsidize training for disadvantaged workers, and the effects of individual choices like college attendance. The principal econometric problem in the estimation of treatment effects is selection bias, which arises from the fact that treated individuals differ from the non-treated for reasons other than treatment status per se. Treatment effects can be estimated using social experiments, regression models, matching estimators, and instrumental variables.
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Angrist, J.D. (2018). Treatment Effect. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2533
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2533
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