17.1 How does it work?

Whatever changed from before the event to after is the effect of that treatment.

Many superstitions are poorly done event studies

  • only use within variation
  • only consider treatments that switch from off to on
  • instead of panel data: time series data
Event study DAG
Event study DAG
  • back door: Treatment <- AfterEvent <- Time -> Outcome
  • control for some elements of Time