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arXiv · 2505.05670

Estimation and Inference in Boundary Discontinuity Designs: Location-Based Methods

Matias D. Cattaneo·Rocio Titiunik·Ruiqi Rae Yu
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Abstract

Boundary discontinuity designs are used to learn about causal treatment effects along a continuous assignment boundary that splits units into control and treatment groups according to a bivariate location score. We analyze location-based local polynomial treatment effect estimators that directly employ the bivariate score of each unit. We develop pointwise and uniform estimation and inference methods for the \textit{Boundary Average Treatment Effect Curve} (BATEC), as well as for two aggregated causal parameters: the \textit{Weighted Boundary Average Treatment Effect} (WBATE) and the \textit{Largest Boundary Average Treatment Effect} (LBATE). Our results cover both sharp and fuzzy (imperfect compliance) designs. We illustrate the methods with an empirical application, and provide companion general-purpose software. The supplemental appendix includes additional substantive theoretical results, methodological details, and simulation evidence.

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Matias D. Cattaneo, Rocio Titiunik, Ruiqi Rae Yu. 2025-05-08. Estimation and Inference in Boundary Discontinuity Designs: Location-Based Methods. https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.05670

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