Bayesian regression discontinuity design with unknown cut-off

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• Stephanie van der Pas (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
• Friday 09 May 2025, 11:45-12:45
• Seminar Room 1, Newton Institute.

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RCLW01 - Uncertainty in multivariate, non-Euclidean, and functional spaces: theory and practice

Joint work with Julia Kowalska and Mark van de Wiel. Regression discontinuity design (RDD) is a quasi-experimental approach used to estimate the causal effects of an intervention assigned based on a cutoff criterion. RDD exploits the idea that close to the cutoff units below and above are similar; hence, they can be meaningfully compared. Consequently, the causal effect can be estimated only locally at the cutoff point. This makes the cutoff point an essential element of RDD . However, especially in medical applications, the exact cutoff location may not always be disclosed to the researcher, and even when it is, the actual location may deviate from the official one. As we illustrate on the application of RDD to the HIV treatment eligibility data, estimating the causal effect at an incorrect cutoff point leads to meaningless results. Moreover, since the cutoff criterion often acts as a guideline rather than as a strict rule, the location of the cutoff may be unclear from the data. The method we present can be applied both as an estimation and validation tool in RDD . We use a Bayesian approach to incorporate prior knowledge and uncertainty about the cutoff location in the causal effect estimation. At the same time, our Bayesian model LoTTA is fitted globally to the whole data, whereas RDD is a local, boundary point estimation problem. In this work we address a natural question that arises: how to make Bayesian inference more local to render a meaningful and powerful estimate of the treatment effect?

This talk is part of the Isaac Newton Institute Seminar Series series.

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