We are interested in estimating the average effect of a binary treatment on a scalar outcome. If assignment o the treatment is exogenous or unconfounded, that is, independent of the potential outcomes given covariates, biases associated with simple treatmentcontrol average comparisons can be removed by adjusting for differences in the covariates. Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983) show that adjusting s...

The use of propensity score methods (Rosenbaum and Rubin, 1983) have become popular for estimating causal inferences in observational studies in medical research (Austin, 2008) and in the social sciences (Thoemmes and Kim, 2011). In most cases however, the use of propensity score methods have been confined to a single treatment. Several researchers have suggested using propensity score methods ...

Feed-in tariff (FiT) is one of the most popular policy measures for supporting the generation from renewable energy sources. In this paper we individuate the determinants driving a country’s choice of adopting FiT and investigate the reasons at the bottom of their distinctions in the choice of energy policies. The novelty of the paper relates to the methodology used to obtain the second aim tha...

Health management programmes are generally evaluated as point treatment studies in which only a baseline and outcome measurement are used in the analysis, even when multiple observations for each individual are available. By summarizing observations into two distinct measurements the evaluator loses any ability to discern patterns of change in the outcome variable over time in relation to the i...

Propensity score based-estimators are commonly used to estimate causal effects in evaluation research. To reduce bias in observational studies researchers might be tempted to include many, perhaps correlated, covariates when estimating the propensity score model. Taking into account that the propensity score is estimated, this study investigates how the efficiency of matching, inverse probabili...

Since the seminal paper by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983b) on propensity score analysis, research using propensity score analysis has grown exponentially over three decades. Nevertheless, some methodological and practical issues still remain unresolved. This introductory chapter describes these issues along with an introduction to basic concepts of propensity score analysis. The remaining chapters ...