MatchIt Nonparametric Preprocessing for Parametric Causal.pdf

MatchIt: Nonparametric Preprocessing for Parametric Causal Inference1 Daniel E. Ho,2 Kosuke Imai,3 Gary King,4 Elizabeth A. Stuart5 June 28, 2011 1We thank Olivia Lau for helpful suggestions about incorporating MatchIt into Zelig. 2Assistant Professor of Law Robert E. Paradise Faculty Scholar, Stanford Law School (559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford CA 94305; , dho@, (650) 723-9560). 3Assistant Professor, Department of Politics, Princeton University (Corwin Hall 041, Depart- ment of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544, USA; , kimai@Princeton.Edu). 4David Florence Professor of Government, Harvard University (Institute for Quantita- tive Social Science, 1737 Cambridge Street, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138; http://GKing.Harvard.Edu, King@Harvard.Edu, (617) 495-2027). 5Assistant Professor, Departments of Mental Health and Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (624 N Broadway, Room 804, Baltimore, MD 21205; /∼estuart, estuart@). Contents 1 Introduction 3 1.1 What MatchIt Does . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2 Software Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.3 Installing MatchIt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.4 Loading MatchIt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.5 Updating MatchIt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 Sta