A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs: Foundations

TL;DR

This paper provides an accessible, practical introduction to Regression Discontinuity designs, focusing on foundational concepts and encouraging standardized practices for empirical research in this area.

Contribution

It offers a clear, practical guide to the core principles of RD designs and discusses extensions, promoting consistent application and evidence accumulation.

Findings

Clarifies the foundational aspects of Sharp RD design

Highlights practical considerations for RD analysis

Discusses extensions to the basic RD framework

Abstract

In this Element and its accompanying Element, Matias D. Cattaneo, Nicolas Idrobo, and Rocio Titiunik provide an accessible and practical guide for the analysis and interpretation of Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs that encourages the use of a common set of practices and facilitates the accumulation of RD-based empirical evidence. In this Element, the authors discuss the foundations of the canonical Sharp RD design, which has the following features: (i) the score is continuously distributed and has only one dimension, (ii) there is only one cutoff, and (iii) compliance with the treatment assignment is perfect. In the accompanying Element, the authors discuss practical and conceptual extensions to the basic RD setup.