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arXiv 2301.09016econ.EMstat.ME
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双重实验下协变量自适应随机化中的推断

Inference for Two-stage Experiments under Covariate-Adaptive Randomization

HSBC Business School(汇丰商学院);Peking University(北京大学)

Jizhou Liu

AI总结:

本文研究了双重随机实验中协变量自适应随机化下的推断问题,提出了差异-平均平均估计量,并探讨了协变量信息在提高效率中的作用。

摘要:

本文研究了在协变量自适应随机化下双重随机实验的推断问题。在该实验设计的初始阶段,集群(例如家庭、学校或图分区)根据集群层面的协变量进行分层,并随机分配到控制组或处理组。随后,进行独立的第二阶段设计,其中每个处理组内的单位进一步进行分层,并根据个体层面的协变量随机分配到控制组或处理组。在同质部分干扰假设下,我建立了条件,使得所提出的差异-平均平均估计量在相应的平均主效应和溢出效应上是一致的且渐近正态,并开发了其渐近方差的一致估计量。结合这些结果,建立了基于这些估计量的检验的渐近有效性。我的发现表明,忽略设计阶段的协变量信息会导致效率损失,而通常使用的忽略或不当使用协变量信息的推断方法可能导致保守或无效的推断。然后,我将这些结果应用于研究协变量自适应随机化下大样本中协变量信息的最优使用,并证明了一种特定的广义匹配对设计对每个提出的估计量具有最小渐近方差。最后,我讨论了协变量调整,它纳入了未用于处理分配的额外基线协变量。通过模拟研究和实证应用,展示了理论结果的实践相关性。

英文摘要:

This paper studies inference in two-stage randomized experiments under covariate-adaptive randomization. In the initial stage of this experimental design, clusters (e.g., households, schools, or graph partitions) are stratified and randomly assigned to control or treatment groups based on cluster-level covariates. Subsequently, an independent second-stage design is carried out, wherein units within each treated cluster are further stratified and randomly assigned to either control or treatment groups, based on individual-level covariates. Under the homogeneous partial interference assumption, I establish conditions under which the proposed difference-in-``average of averages'' estimators are consistent and asymptotically normal for the corresponding average primary and spillover effects and develop consistent estimators of their asymptotic variances. Combining these results establishes the asymptotic validity of tests based on these estimators. My findings suggest that ignoring covariate information in the design stage can result in efficiency loss, and commonly used inference methods that ignore or improperly use covariate information can lead to either conservative or invalid inference. Then, I apply these results to studying optimal use of covariate information under covariate-adaptive randomization in large samples, and demonstrate that a specific generalized matched-pair design achieves minimum asymptotic variance for each proposed estimator. Finally, I discuss covariate adjustment, which incorporates additional baseline covariates not used for treatment assignment. The practical relevance of the theoretical results is illustrated through a simulation study and an empirical application.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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