Difference in Difference method compares not the outcomes Y but the change in the outcomes pre- and posttreatment. This is a quasi-experiment approach.
Getting sample data.
library(foreign) mydata <- read.dta("https://dss.princeton.edu/training/Panel101.dta")
Create a dummy variable to indicate the time when the treatment started. Lets assume that treatment started in 1994. In this case, years before 1994 will have a value of 0 and 1994+ a 1. If you already have this skip this step.
mydata$time=ifelse(mydata$year>=1994,1,0)
Create a dummy variable to identify the group exposed to the treatment. In this example lets assumed that countries with code 5,6, and 7 were treated (=1). Countries 1-4 were not treated (=0). If you already have this skip this step.
mydata$treated = ifelse(mydata$country == "E" | mydata$country == "F" | mydata$country == "G", 1, 0)
Create an interaction between time and treated. We will call this interaction ‘did’.
mydata$did = mydata$time * mydata$treated
Estimating the DID estimator (method 1: generate the interaction)
didreg = lm(y ~ treated + time + did, data = mydata) summary(didreg)
Call:
lm(formula = y ~ treated + time + did, data = mydata)
Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-9.768e+09 -1.623e+09 1.167e+08 1.393e+09 6.807e+09
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 3.581e+08 7.382e+08 0.485 0.6292
treated 1.776e+09 1.128e+09 1.575 0.1200
time 2.289e+09 9.530e+08 2.402 0.0191 *
did -2.520e+09 1.456e+09 -1.731 0.0882 .
---
Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
Residual standard error: 2.953e+09 on 66 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: 0.08273, Adjusted R-squared: 0.04104
F-statistic: 1.984 on 3 and 66 DF, p-value: 0.1249
The coefficient for ‘did’ is the differences-in-differences estimator. The effect is significant at 10% with the treatment having a negative effect.
Estimating the DID estimator (method 2: using the multiplication)
didreg1 = lm(y ~ treated*time, data = mydata) summary(didreg1)
Call:
lm(formula = y ~ treated * time, data = mydata)
Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-9.768e+09 -1.623e+09 1.167e+08 1.393e+09 6.807e+09
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 3.581e+08 7.382e+08 0.485 0.6292
treated 1.776e+09 1.128e+09 1.575 0.1200
time 2.289e+09 9.530e+08 2.402 0.0191 *
treated:time -2.520e+09 1.456e+09 -1.731 0.0882 .
---
Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
Residual standard error: 2.953e+09 on 66 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: 0.08273, Adjusted R-squared: 0.04104
F-statistic: 1.984 on 3 and 66 DF, p-value: 0.1249
The coefficient for ‘treated*time’ is the differences-indifferences estimator (‘did’ in the previous example). The effect is significant at 10% with the treatment having a negative effect.
Stock, J. H., & Watson, M. W. (2019). Introduction to econometrics. Pearson Education Limited.
If you have questions or comments about this guide or method, please email data@Princeton.edu.
