Discussion paper

DP16974 Multi-cutoff RD designs with observations located at each cutoff: problems and solutions

In RD designs with multiple cutoffs, the identification of an average causal effect across cutoffs may be problematic if a marginally exposed subject is located exactly at each cutoff. This occurs whenever a fixed number of treatment slots is allocated starting from the subject with the highest (or lowest) value of the score, until exhaustion.
Exploiting the ``within’’ variability at each cutoff is the safest and likely efficient option.
Alternative strategies exist, but they do not always guarantee identification of a meaningful causal effect and are less precise. To illustrate our findings, we revisit the study of Pop-Eleches and Urquiola (2013).

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Citation

Fort, M, A Ichino, E Rettore and G Zanella (2022), ‘DP16974 Multi-cutoff RD designs with observations located at each cutoff: problems and solutions‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 16974. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp16974