Chapter 1. An Introduction to the Econometrics of Program Evaluation -- Chapter 2. Methods Based on Selection on Observables -- Chapter 3. Methods Based on Selection on Unobservables -- Chapter 4. Local Average Treatment Effect and Regression-Discontinuity-Design -- Chapter 5. Difference-in-differences with many pre- and post-treatment times -- Chapter 6. Synthetic Control Method.
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This book provides advanced theoretical and applied tools for the implementation of modern micro-econometric techniques in evidence-based program evaluation for the social sciences. The author presents a comprehensive toolbox for designing rigorous and effective ex-post program evaluation using the statistical software package Stata. For each method, a statistical presentation is developed, followed by a practical estimation of the treatment effects. By using both real and simulated data, readers will become familiar with evaluation techniques, such as regression-adjustment, matching, difference-in-differences, instrumental-variables and regression-discontinuity-design, and are given practical guidelines for selecting and applying suitable methods for specific policy contexts.
This article investigates how European universities (EU27+UK) respond to different types of incentives, namely, funding derived from: a) core government allocation, b) external sources (i.e., third-party funding), and c) students' tuition fees. The general research question we address is: how does universities' performance respond and adjust to different funding government policies and universities' strategies? We perform an exploratory analysis based on two methodological pillars: 1) the use of the RISIS-ETER database, providing a register of European Higher Education Institutions and containing basic statistical information on them, including descriptors on geographical location, students and graduates, personnel, finances, and research activities; 2) the responsiveness-score econometric model, aimed at testing separately the response of each university toward core funding, third-party funding, and tuition fees. Specifically, we aim at investigating specific research issues, in particular: a) the universities' positioning in terms of the capacity to respond to specific policy measures; b) the identification of the main policy factors that universities' performance; c) the response heterogeneity to different funding inputs; d) the study of the phenomenon of convergence (divergence) taking place in universities' performance.
The relationship between decentralization and the quality of governments is one of the core issues of decentralization studies. This paper aims to make two contributions to this research. Firstly, we conduct an empirical analysis at the local level, covering 174 regions across the European countries. Secondly, we employ a novel approach based on a dose-response methodology. Most of the analysis is conducted at the country level. We believe an analysis at the regional level will provide several relevant insights. Firstly, the improvement in the performance of local government is one of the main predictions of the theory of fiscal federalism predicts. Indeed, as Faguet (2014) argues, the strongest theoretical argument in favour of decentralization is that it will improve the accountability and responsiveness of government by altering its structure so as to increase citizen voice and change the deep incentives that public officials face. Secondly, country level analysis hides heterogeneity both in the quality of government as well as in the degree of decentralization. As for the former, variability within country is not negligible. In addition, several countries also exhibit regions characterized by different degree of autonomy. Empirical studies are divided into two main groups. Those which employ a direct measure of government quality, and those which employ indirect measures of government quality, such as for instance education or public works, infant mortality, illiteracy rate (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2006; Enikolopov and Zhuravskaya 2007). In order to measure the quality of government at the regional level we employ a composite indicator developed by ?The QOG Institute' (Charron, Dijkstra, and Lapuente 2014; Quality of Government Institute 2010), a perception-based indicator built from a 34,000-respondents survey from 172 regions within 18 EU member states. In order to measure the degree of political decentralization we employ the ?Regional Authority Index' developed by (Hooghe, Marks, and Schakel 2008, 2008). We introduce a novel dose-response method to identify the impact on decentralization on the quality of government in the provisions of local public goods as a whole, as well as on three indicators: corruption, impartiality, and effectiveness. We find a u-shape relationship. More decentralized regions are those exhibiting a higher quality of government, along with those less decentralized, while those in the middle show a poorer performance. As for the three dimensions, impartiality increases along decentralization, corruption does not have a clear pattern, while the quality of local goods is decreasing with decentralization. Relevant political recommendations are derived.
