2013/11/12 by Colm O'Muircheartaigh, Colm O’Muircheartaigh, Larry V. Hedges
Mathematics · Social Sciences · #Advanced Causal Inference Techniques #Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics #School Choice and Performance
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/rssc.12037
crossref issued 2013/11/12 · crossref published 2013/11/12 · crossref published-online 2013/11/12 · openalex publication_date 2013/11/12 · crossref created 2013/11/12 · crossref published-print 2014/02/01 · crossref deposited 2023/07/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/27
Summary The paper addresses means of generalizing from an experiment based on a non-probability sample to a population of interest and to subpopulations of interest, where information is available about relevant covariates in the whole population. Using stratification based on propensity score matching with an external populationwide data set, an estimator of the population average treatment effect is constructed. An example is presented in which the applicability of a major education intervention in a non-probability sample of schools in Texas, USA, is assessed for the state as a whole and for its constituent counties. The implications of the results are discussed for two important situations: how to use this methodology to establish where future experiments should be conducted to improve this generalization and how to construct a priori a strategy for experimentation which will maximize both the initial inferential power and the final inferential basis for a series of experiments.