International Workshop on 'Causal Inference, Program Evaluation, and External Validity'

Decisions in social Policy, economics and other social sciences depend critically on appropriate evaluations of policies and programs. Given the high cost of public programs, program evaluation has received an especially increasing attention as a tool to help answer questions about what programs work, for whom, and why and how to optimally design future policies.

The International Workshop on "Causal Inference, Program Evaluation, and External Validity", co-sponsored by the European Social Fund Project (ESF), the Ministry of Labour, Employment and the Social and Solidarity Economy of Luxembourg, ARCO (Action Research for CO-Development) & LISER, will focus on advances in the design and analysis of experimental and observational studies for causal effects.

Of particular interest are analyses characterized by atypical data structures and treatment assignment mechanisms, novel identification and estimation strategies for complex observational studies, analyses with interference among units, and external validity of program evaluation studies. Particular emphasis will be given to analyses in the context of social and labor market programs.

Call for papers

Participants are invited to present papers related to causal inference and program evaluation. Those who are interested in presenting their work must submit their article in pdf format using the online application form, by April 27^th, 2017 (Papers submission deadline extended from April 20^th till April 27^th). Authors of accepted papers will be notified by May 30^th, 2017.

Selected papers by the scientific committee of the workshop will be invited to submit their work for possible publication in a Special Issue of the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics (JBES) by December 15th, 2017.

Researchers and advanced graduate students interested in the topic are welcome to attend and participate in the workshop and training session even if they are not presenting papers. However, the total number of participants will be limited, so early registration is encouraged.

Key-note Speakers & Members of the Scientific Committee

• Rajeev Dehejia, Professor of Public Policy at New York University/Wagner
• Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Professor of Economics at Syracuse University (Maxwell School)
• Fabrizia Mealli, Professor of Statistics at the University of Florence
• Donald Rubin, Professor of Statistics at Harvard University

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The International workshop will be preceded by a 3-day Summer School on "Impact Evaluation Methodologies" (10-12 July, 2017), given by Professors Donald Rubin, Fabrizia Mealli, and Alfonso Flores-Lagunes.