dsc

R package to implement Dynamic Synthetic Control ---- an enhanced synthetic control method that accounts for varying speeds across units and times.

Installation

You can install dsc directly from GitHub with:

devtools::install_github("conflictlab/dsc")

Example Usage

Here's a basic example to get you started:

# Load the dsc package
library(dsc)

# Load the Basque dataset from the Synth package
data(basque, package = "Synth")
data <- basque

# Rename relevant columns for clarity
colnames(data)[1:4] <- c("id", "unit", "time", "value")

# Compute additional variables
data$invest_ratio <- data$invest / data$value
data$value_raw <- data$value

# Define special predictors for the model
special_preds <- expression(list(
  list(dep.var, 1960:1969, c("mean")),
  list("invest_ratio", 1964:1969, c("mean")),
  list("popdens", 1969, c("mean")),
  list("sec.agriculture", 1961:1969, c("mean")),
  list("sec.energy", 1961:1969, c("mean")),
  list("sec.industry", 1961:1969, c("mean")),
  list("sec.construction", 1961:1969, c("mean")),
  list("sec.services.venta", 1961:1969, c("mean")),
  list("sec.services.nonventa", 1961:1969, c("mean")),
  list("school.illit", 1964:1969, c("mean")),
  list("school.prim", 1964:1969, c("mean")),
  list("school.med", 1964:1969, c("mean")),
  list("school.high", 1964:1969, c("mean")),
  list("school.post.high", 1964:1969, c("mean"))
))

# Execute the DSC analysis
result <- dsc(
  data = data,
  start.time = 1955,
  end.time = 1997,
  treat.time = 1970,
  dependent = "Basque Country (Pais Vasco)",
  predictors = NULL,
  parallel = TRUE,
  special.predictors = special_preds,
  time.predictors.prior = 1955:1969,
  time.optimize.ssr = 1955:1969
)

Citation

To acknowledge the use of this package in your work, please use the citation format provided below:

Jian Cao (2023). dsc: Dynamic Synthetic Control Method for Comparative Case Studies. Version 0.1.0. URL: github.com/conflictlab/dsc

Feedback and Contributions

We welcome your feedback and contributions! Please open an issue on GitHub or submit a pull request if you want to propose changes.