Examination of the Synthetic Control Method for Evaluating Health Policies with Multiple Treated Units.

ABSTRACT: This paper examines the synthetic control method in contrast to commonly used difference-in-differences (DiD) estimation, in the context of a re-evaluation of a pay-for-performance (P4P) initiative, the Advancing Quality scheme. The synthetic control method aims to estimate treatment effects by constructing a weighted combination of control units, which represents what the treated group would have experienced in the absence of receiving the treatment. While DiD estimation assumes that the effects of unobserved confounders are constant over time, the synthetic control method allows for these effects to change over time, by re-weighting the control group so that it has similar pre-intervention characteristics to the treated group. We extend the synthetic control approach to a setting of eval

SUBMITTER: Kreif N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5111584 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature