Impact Evaluation

Markus Frölich is Director of the Center for Evaluation and Development (C4ED), Professor of Econometrics at the Universität Mannheim, Germany and J-PAL Affiliate. He has twenty years of experience in impact evaluations, including the development of new econometric methods and numerous applied impact evaluations for organisations such as Green Climate Fund, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), International Labour Organization (ILO), UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Bank. Stefan Sperlich is Full Professor of Statistics and Econometrics at the Université de Genève, has about fifteen years of experience as a consultant, and was co-founder of the Poverty, Equity and Growth in Developing Countries research centre, Göttingen. He has published in various top ranked journals and was awarded with the 2000-2002 Koopmans econometric theory prize.

• 1. Basic definitions, assumptions, and randomized experiments; 2. An introduction to nonparametric identification and estimation; 3. Selection on observables: matching, regression and propensity score estimators; 4. Selection on unobservables: nonparametric IV and structural equation approaches; 5. Difference-in-differences estimation: selection on observables and unobservables; 6. Regression discontinuity design; 7. Distributional policy analysis and quantile treatment effects; 8. Dynamic treatment evaluation.

'This comprehensive book on impact evaluation provides a long awaited state-of-the-art treatment of the econometric and statistical tools used for impact evaluation in economics and neighboring social sciences. What makes this most useful is the combination of rigorous discussion of the key methodological aspects, so that the tools do not remain a black box, with careful discussions of identification and illustrations of applications. This book will be a quintessential tool both for practitioners and scholars in the field.' Bernd Fitzenberger, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Germany