Accounting for Dropouts in Evaluations of Social Programs
研究实验组部分成员在未接受完整处理前退出的问题，分析标准估计量在部分处理情况下的失效，提出检验识别假设的方法，并讨论替代参数。
This paper explores issues that arise in the evaluation of social programs using experimental data in the frequently encountered case where some of the experimental treatment group members drop out of the program prior to receiving treatment. We begin with the standard estimator for this case and the identifying assumption upon which it rests. We then examine the behavior of the estimator when the dropouts receive a partial "dose" of the program treatment prior to dropping out of the program. In the case of partial treatment, the identifying assumption is typically violated, thereby making the estimator inconsistent for the conventional parameter of interest: the impact of full treatment on the fully treated. We develop a test of the identifying assumption underlying the standard estimator and consider whether exclusion restrictions produce identification of the mean impact of the program when this assumption fails to hold. Finally, we discuss alternative parameters of interest in the presence of partial treatment among the dropouts and argue that the conventional parameter is not always the economically interesting one. We apply our methods to data from a recent experimental evaluation of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) program. © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology