Did joining the euro make countries more productive? We build look-alike comparison countries from economies that did not join, first with simulated data and then with a published study of the euro area, and check whether the effect is real or just noise. This R tutorial comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
What happens to nearby home prices when a registered sex offender moves into a neighborhood? We compare homes close to the address with homes a little farther away, before and after the move, and show how the distance chosen as the cutoff can change the answer. This R tutorial comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Did expanding Medicaid health coverage to low-income adults reduce deaths? We compare counties in states that expanded coverage with counties in states that did not, and show how counting each county equally or each person equally can change the answer. This R tutorial includes an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Did the 1988 California cigarette tax reduce cigarette sales, and do different methods agree on how much? This R tutorial applies six ways of evaluating a policy to the same data and finds that most point to a drop of roughly 13 to 20 packs per person each year. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Do good institutions make countries richer? This Python tutorial revisits the 2001 study by Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson, which uses death rates of early European settlers in 64 former colonies to isolate the effect of institutions, and shows that a simple comparison understates that effect. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Do good institutions make countries richer? Following the 2001 study by Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson in Stata, we use the death rates of early European settlers in 64 former colonies as a natural experiment, and find an effect much larger than a simple comparison suggests. The tutorial includes an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Does mining wealth help or hurt local development, and do good local institutions make the difference? This Python tutorial uses causal machine learning on simulated district data with known true effects to measure how the impact of mining and mineral prices varies from place to place. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Does mining make places richer or poorer, and does the answer depend on the quality of government? Using simulated data that mirrors a published study, we use machine learning in Stata to estimate how the effects of mining and mineral prices on development differ from place to place. The tutorial comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Does working from home make employees more productive, or do productive people simply choose to work from home? This beginner Python tutorial uses simulated data with a known answer to show a four-step approach to cause and effect: state your assumptions, decide what to compare, estimate the effect and stress-test it. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Does access to a workplace retirement savings plan make American households save more, or do the households that get it simply earn more? This Python tutorial uses double machine learning, which lets flexible prediction models account for income and other differences, on 1991 survey data. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.