How much did Proposition 99, the 1989 California tobacco program, reduce cigarette sales? This beginner Python tutorial teaches the synthetic control method, which builds a look-alike California from other states, finds about 19 fewer packs sold per person each year, and then tries hard to break that result. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Did the 1988 California tobacco law cut cigarette sales, and did it also affect neighboring states such as Nevada? This Python tutorial builds a look-alike California from other states in three steps, the last one letting nearby states be affected too, and finds that the drop in California holds up. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
How much did the 2016 Brexit vote cost the British economy? This Python tutorial builds a look-alike United Kingdom from other wealthy economies with six related methods, finds output about 3 percent lower by the end of 2018, and shows how default settings can quietly change the answer. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
How much did the 2016 Brexit vote cost the economy of the United Kingdom? We build a look-alike United Kingdom from other rich countries, step by step through a ladder of increasingly flexible methods, and compare what each step says. This R tutorial includes cheat sheets for Stata and Python and an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
How did the 2004 tsunami affect the economy of Aceh, Indonesia, over the long run? This beginner-friendly Python tutorial uses simulated data, nighttime lights, and several causal methods to compare damaged and undamaged areas before and after the disaster.
Did the large 2012 Kansas tax cut boost the state economy, or shrink it? This beginner R tutorial builds a look-alike Kansas from other states, then corrects the remaining mismatch, and finds output per person roughly 3 to 4 percent lower, although chance cannot be fully ruled out. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Do gender quotas raise the share of women in national parliaments? In Stata, we compare 9 countries that adopted quotas in different years with look-alike groups built from 110 countries without quotas, and find an average gain of about 8 percentage points that varies a lot across countries. The tutorial includes an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
Did the 1988 tobacco tax in California reduce smoking? In Stata, we compare three ways of building a comparison for California from other states, including a newer method that blends their strengths, and all three agree that cigarette sales fell, though by different amounts. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.
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.
Did the carbon tax that Sweden introduced in 1991 cut carbon emissions from transport, and did it hurt the economy? This Python tutorial builds a look-alike Sweden from other wealthy countries and finds transport emissions about 11 percent lower each year, with no sign of slower economic growth. It comes with an interactive app that runs in your web browser.