Dear Applied Statistics Workshop Community,
Our next meeting of the semester will be at *12:10 pm (EST) Wednesday,
March 30*, where Hannah Druckenmiller
<https://hannahdruckenmiller.com> (Resources
for the Future) presents "Accounting for Unobservable Heterogeneity in
Cross Section Using Spatial First Differences."
Please note that this meeting will be *entirely on Zoom
<https://harvard.zoom.us/j/97004196610?pwd=eGFydkF5RDRjUlk5RVcyTjV6OStUQT09>*
.
*Abstract*
We develop a simple cross-sectional research design to identify causal
effects that is robust to unobservable heterogeneity. When many
observational units are dense in physical space, it may be sufficient to
regress the “spatial first differences” (SFD) of the outcome on the
treatment and omit all covariates. This approach is conceptually similar to
first differencing approaches in time-series or panel models, except the
index for time is replaced with an index for locations in space. The SFD
design identifies plausibly causal effects, so long as local changes in the
treatment and unobservable confounders are not systematically correlated
between immediately adjacent neighbors. We demonstrate the SFD approach by
recovering new cross-sectional estimates for the effects of time-invariant
geographic factors, soil and climate, on long-run average crop
productivities across US counties — relationships that are notoriously
confounded by unobservables but crucial for guiding economic decisions,
such as land management and climate policy.
*Zoom link*:
https://harvard.zoom.us/j/97004196610?pwd=eGFydkF5RDRjUlk5RVcyTjV6OStUQT09
*When:* Wednesday, March 30 at 12:10 - 1:30 pm.
*Schedule of the workshop*:
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/applied.stats.workshop-gov3009
Looking forward to seeing you all on Wednesday!
Best,
Sooahn