Design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance
We develop a framework to analyze partial population experiments, a generalization of the cluster experimental design where clusters are assigned to different treatment intensities. Our framework allows for heterogeneity in cluster sizes and outcome distributions. We study the large-sample behavior...
Guardado en:
| Autores principales: | , , |
|---|---|
| Formato: | Articulo Documento de trabajo |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
2024
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/171166 |
| Aporte de: |
| id |
I19-R120-10915-171166 |
|---|---|
| record_format |
dspace |
| spelling |
I19-R120-10915-1711662024-10-07T20:09:34Z http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/171166 Design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance Cruces, Guillermo Antonio Tortarolo, Darío Vazquez-Bare, Gonzalo 2024-10 2024-10-07T13:33:56Z en Ciencias Económicas partial population experiments spillovers randomized controlled trials cluster experiments two-stage designs property tax tax compliance We develop a framework to analyze partial population experiments, a generalization of the cluster experimental design where clusters are assigned to different treatment intensities. Our framework allows for heterogeneity in cluster sizes and outcome distributions. We study the large-sample behavior of OLS estimators and cluster-robust variance estimators and show that (i) ignoring cluster heterogeneity may result in severely underpowered experiments and (ii) the cluster-robust variance estimator may be upward-biased when clusters are heterogeneous. We derive formulas for power, minimum detectable effects, and optimal cluster assignment probabilities. All our results apply to cluster experiments, a particular case of our framework. We set up a potential outcomes framework to interpret the OLS estimands as causal effects. We implement our methods in a large-scale experiment to estimate the direct and spillover effects of a communication campaign on property tax compliance. We find an increase in tax compliance among individuals directly targeted with our mailing, as well as compliance spillovers on untreated individuals in clusters with a high proportion of treated taxpayers. Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales Articulo Documento de trabajo http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) application/pdf |
| institution |
Universidad Nacional de La Plata |
| institution_str |
I-19 |
| repository_str |
R-120 |
| collection |
SEDICI (UNLP) |
| language |
Inglés |
| topic |
Ciencias Económicas partial population experiments spillovers randomized controlled trials cluster experiments two-stage designs property tax tax compliance |
| spellingShingle |
Ciencias Económicas partial population experiments spillovers randomized controlled trials cluster experiments two-stage designs property tax tax compliance Cruces, Guillermo Antonio Tortarolo, Darío Vazquez-Bare, Gonzalo Design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance |
| topic_facet |
Ciencias Económicas partial population experiments spillovers randomized controlled trials cluster experiments two-stage designs property tax tax compliance |
| description |
We develop a framework to analyze partial population experiments, a generalization of the cluster experimental design where clusters are assigned to different treatment intensities. Our framework allows for heterogeneity in cluster sizes and outcome distributions. We study the large-sample behavior of OLS estimators and cluster-robust variance estimators and show that (i) ignoring cluster heterogeneity may result in severely underpowered experiments and (ii) the cluster-robust variance estimator may be upward-biased when clusters are heterogeneous. We derive formulas for power, minimum detectable effects, and optimal cluster assignment probabilities. All our results apply to cluster experiments, a particular case of our framework. We set up a potential outcomes framework to interpret the OLS estimands as causal effects. We implement our methods in a large-scale experiment to estimate the direct and spillover effects of a communication campaign on property tax compliance. We find an increase in tax compliance among individuals directly targeted with our mailing, as well as compliance spillovers on untreated individuals in clusters with a high proportion of treated taxpayers. |
| format |
Articulo Documento de trabajo |
| author |
Cruces, Guillermo Antonio Tortarolo, Darío Vazquez-Bare, Gonzalo |
| author_facet |
Cruces, Guillermo Antonio Tortarolo, Darío Vazquez-Bare, Gonzalo |
| author_sort |
Cruces, Guillermo Antonio |
| title |
Design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance |
| title_short |
Design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance |
| title_full |
Design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance |
| title_fullStr |
Design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance |
| title_sort |
design of partial population experiments with an application to spillovers in tax compliance |
| publishDate |
2024 |
| url |
http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/171166 |
| work_keys_str_mv |
AT crucesguillermoantonio designofpartialpopulationexperimentswithanapplicationtospilloversintaxcompliance AT tortarolodario designofpartialpopulationexperimentswithanapplicationtospilloversintaxcompliance AT vazquezbaregonzalo designofpartialpopulationexperimentswithanapplicationtospilloversintaxcompliance |
| _version_ |
1825910334291968000 |