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SSRN Electronic Journal
Article . 2022 . Peer-reviewed
Data sources: Crossref
Econometric Reviews
Article . 2026 . Peer-reviewed
Data sources: Crossref
https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/ar...
Article . 2024
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
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Aggregation Trees

Authors: Di Francesco, Riccardo;

Aggregation Trees

Abstract

Uncovering the heterogeneous effects of particular policies or "treatments" is a key concern for researchers and policymakers. A common approach is to report average treatment effects across subgroups based on observable covariates. However, the choice of subgroups is crucial as it poses the risk of $p$-hacking and requires balancing interpretability with granularity. This paper proposes a nonparametric approach to construct heterogeneous subgroups. The approach enables a flexible exploration of the trade-off between interpretability and the discovery of more granular heterogeneity by constructing a sequence of nested groupings, each with an optimality property. By integrating our approach with "honesty" and debiased machine learning, we provide valid inference about the average treatment effect of each group. We validate the proposed methodology through an empirical Monte-Carlo study and apply it to revisit the impact of maternal smoking on birth weight, revealing systematic heterogeneity driven by parental and birth-related characteristics.

Keywords

FOS: Economics and business, Econometrics (econ.EM), Econometrics

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
Green