title:         The Balance Test Fallacy in Matching Methods for Causal Inference
authors:       Kosuke Imai, Gary King, Elizabeth Stuart
entrydate:     2006-06-29 10:18:23
keywords:      causal inference, covariate balance, matching, treatment effect
abstract:      Matching methods are widely used to adjust for nonrandom treatment assignment when making causal inferences. In numerous articles across a diverse variety of academic fields that use matching, researchers evaluate the success of the procedure by conducting hypothesis tests, most commonly the t-test for the mean difference of each of the observed covariates between the matched treated and control groups. We demonstrate that these hypothesis tests are fallacious and discuss better alternatives.

http://polmeth.wustl.edu/retrieve.php?id=611

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