R/synthdid-package.R

In synth-inference/synthdid: Synthetic Difference-in-Difference Estimation

#' @description
#' This package implements the synthetic difference in difference estimator (SDID) for the average treatment effect in panel data,
#' as proposed in Arkhangelsky et al (2019). We observe matrices of outcomes Y and binary treatment indicators W
#' that we think of as satisfying Y\[i,j\] = L\[i,j\] + tau\[i,j\] W\[i,j\] + noise\[i,j\].
#' Here tau\[i,j\] is the effect of treatment on the unit i at time j, and we estimate the average effect of
#' treatment when and where it happened: the average of tau\[i,j\] over the observations with W\[i,j\]=1.
#' All treated units must begin treatment simultaneously, so W is a block matrix: W\[i,j\] = 1 for i > N0 and j > T0
#' and zero otherwise, with N0 denoting the number of control units and T0 the number of observation times
#' before onset of treatment. This applies, in particular, to the case of a single treated unit or treated period.
#'
#' This package is currently in beta and the functionality and interface is subject to change.
#'
#' Some helpful links for getting started:
#'
#' * The [R package documentation](https://synth-inference.github.io/synthdid/) contains usage examples and method reference.
#' * The [online vignettes](https://synth-inference.github.io/synthdid/articles/more-plotting.html) contains a gallery of plot examples.
#' * For community questions and answers around usage, see [Github issues page](https://github.com/synth-inference/synthdid/issues).
#'
#' @examples
#' \donttest{
#'# Estimate the effect of California Proposition 99 on cigarette consumption
#'data('california_prop99')
#'setup = panel.matrices(california_prop99)
#'tau.hat = synthdid_estimate(setup$Y, setup$N0, setup$T0)
#'se = sqrt(vcov(tau.hat, method='placebo'))
#'sprintf('point estimate: %1.2f', tau.hat)
#'sprintf('95%% CI (%1.2f, %1.2f)', tau.hat - 1.96 * se, tau.hat + 1.96 * se)
#'plot(tau.hat)
#'}
#'
#' @keywords internal
"_PACKAGE"