In studies of discrimination, researchers often seek to estimate a causal effect race or gender on outcomes. For example, in the criminal justice context, one might ask whether arrested individuals would have been subsequently charged convicted had they different race. It has long known that such counterfactual questions face measurement challenges related omitted-variable bias, and conceptual ...

Rural firms have a higher survival rate than urban firms. Over the first 13 years after firm entry, the hazard rate for firm exits is persistently higher for urban firms. While differences in firm attributes explain some of the rural-urban gap in firm survival, rural firms retain a survival advantage 18.5% greater than observationally equivalent urban firms. We argue that in competitive markets...

Suppose we are interested in estimating the average causal effect from an observational study. A doubly robust estimator, which is a hybrid of the outcome regression and propensity score weighting, is more robust than estimators obtained by either of them in the sense that, if at least one of the two models holds, the doubly robust estimator is consistent. However, a doubly robust estimator may...

abstract background: physical activities among adolescents affects health during pubescence and adolescence and decrease in physical activities among adolescents has become a global challenge. the aim of the present study was to define the relation between the level of physical activity among adolescent girls and their health beliefs as personal factor and level of observational learning as env...