Regression Discontinuity Designs Based on Population Thresholds: Pitfalls and Solutions

Eggers, Andrew C.; Freier, Ronny; Grembi, Veronica; Nannicini, Tommaso

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2708366

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Between 1970 and 2000 there were 191 referenda in Illinois, of which 97 passed and 94 failed (some of these latter towns also passed the 25,000 threshold during the same period). Note that towns generally do not lose home rule when their population decreases, and the existence of towns with home rule below the threshold is therefore not necessarily the result of strategic manipulation à la Eggers (2015). Conversely, a municipality with a population above the cutoff can, by referendum, elect to remove its home rule authority.…”

Section: Home Rule In the Illinois State Constitutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rules Versus Home Rule Local Government Responses to Negative Revenue Shocks

Shoag¹,

Tuttle²,

Veuger³

2019

National Tax Journal

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Local governments rely heavily on sales tax revenue. We use national bankruptcies of big-box retail chains to study sudden plausibly exogenous decreases in this type of revenue. Treated localities respond by reducing spending on law enforcement and administrative services. We further study how cities with different degrees of autonomy vary in their response. Cities in home rule states, who have greater autonomy, react more swiftly by raising other types of revenue. A regression discontinuity analysis of cities in Illinois, where home rule status is triggered by crossing a population threshold, shows that this effect of local autonomy is causal: home rule leads to smaller revenue drops and stronger bond ratings.

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Section: Home Rule In the Illinois State Constitutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rules Versus Home Rule Local Government Responses to Negative Revenue Shocks

Shoag¹,

Tuttle²,

Veuger³

2019

National Tax Journal

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“…1 See Eggers et al (2015b) for a review of studies that exploit population thresholds of municipalities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Misunderstandings About the Regression Discontinuity Design in the Study of Close Elections

Cuesta

Imai

2016

Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci.

152

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Recently, the regression discontinuity (RD) design has become increasingly popular among social scientists. One prominent application is the study of close elections. We explicate several methodological misunderstandings widespread across disciplines by revisiting the controversy concerning the validity of RD design when applied to close elections. Although many researchers invoke the local or as-if-random assumption near the threshold, it is more stringent than the required continuity assumption. We show that this seemingly subtle point determines the appropriateness of various statistical methods and changes our understanding of how sorting invalidates the design. When multiple-testing problems are also addressed, we find that evidence for sorting in US House elections is substantially weaker and highly dependent on estimation methods. Finally, we caution that despite the temptation to improve the external validity, the extrapolation of RD estimates away from the threshold sacrifices the design's advantage in internal validity.

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Regression Discontinuity Designs Based on Population Thresholds: Pitfalls and Solutions

Cited by 2 publications

References 23 publications

Rules Versus Home Rule Local Government Responses to Negative Revenue Shocks

Rules Versus Home Rule Local Government Responses to Negative Revenue Shocks

Misunderstandings About the Regression Discontinuity Design in the Study of Close Elections

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