arXiv subjects

Paul Niehaus

Publications and source records attributed to Paul Niehaus.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

What Would it Cost to End Extreme Poverty?

We study poverty minimization via direct transfers, framing this as a statistical learning problem while retaining the information constraints faced by real-world programs. Using nationally representative household consumption surveys from 34 countries that together account for 76% of the world's poor, we estimate that reducing the poverty rate to 1% (from a baseline of 13%) would cost $211 B nominal per year. This is 4.0 times the corresponding reduction in the aggregate poverty gap, but only 19% of the cost of universal basic income. Extrapolated globally, the results imply a cost of 0.28% of global GDP to (approximately) end extreme poverty.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2026

A model of multiple hypothesis testing

Multiple hypothesis testing practices vary widely, without consensus on which are appropriate when. This paper provides an economic foundation for these practices designed to capture leading examples, such as regulatory approval on the basis of clinical trials. MHT adjustments are appropriate in our framework to the extent that research costs are invariant to the number of hypotheses. Control of average size, as for example via a Bonferroni correction, emerges in the limit case where all costs are fixed; in the opposite limit, where costs vary in proportion to the hypothesis count, no correction is needed. We illustrate implications by calculating explicit critical values using data on actual costs in the drug approval process and in program evaluation research; these suggest that some MHT adjustment is warranted in these applications, but not as much as implied by standard practice.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2026

Linear estimation of global average treatment effects

We study estimation of and inference for the average causal effect of treating every member of a population, as opposed to none, using an experiment that treats only some. Considering settings where spillovers can occur between any pair of units and decay slowly with distance, we derive the minimax rate over all linear estimators and experimental designs, which increases with the spatial rate of spillover decay. This rate of convergence can be achieved using an inverse probability weighting estimator when randomization clusters are large, but not otherwise. If the causal model is linear, however, an OLS-based estimator converges faster than IPW when clusters are small and is consistent even under unit-level randomization. We provide methods for radius selection and inference and apply these to the cash transfer experiment studied by Egger et al. (2022), obtaining a 22% larger estimated effect on consumption.

econ.EM↗