Enabling the econometric analysis of policy interventions


Research within SEEC, led by Professor Mark Schaffer, in collaboration with colleagues in the US, New Zealand and Australia, has led to the creation of programmes for the Stata statistical software environment that are used by researchers around the world. Over 400,000 downloads have already occurred.

The core programmes have enabled researchers, particularly in governmental and quasi-governmental organisations, such as the World Bank and the Urban Institute, Washington, DC, to rigorously analyse the causal impact of a policy in settings where an experiment is infeasible and for experiments where take-up of treatment is incomplete, i.e. for settings in which the vast majority of empirical work is done.