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	Placebo Test nella Ricerca sull'Istruzione	Abbinamento del punteggio di propensione
Campo	Inferenza causale	Statistica per la ricerca
Famiglia	Regression model	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	1990s–2000s	1983
Ideatore	Widely adopted in applied econometrics and education research; codified by Imbens, Wooldridge, Lee, and Lemieux	Paul Rosenbaum and Donald Rubin
Tipo	Falsification / robustness check	Method
Fonte seminale	Imbens, G. W., & Wooldridge, J. M. (2009). Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation. Journal of Economic Literature, 47(1), 5-86.	Rosenbaum, P. R., & Rubin, D. B. (1983). The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika, 70(1), 41–55.
Alias	placebo regression, falsification test, placebo check, fake-treatment test	PSM, propensity score weighting, covariate balance
Correlati	4	3
Sintesi	A placebo test is a falsification check used in quasi-experimental education research to validate a causal design. By applying the same estimator to a time period, group, or outcome where no real effect should exist, researchers verify that their identification strategy is not picking up spurious patterns. A statistically significant placebo estimate signals a flaw in the design, while a null result supports its credibility.	Propensity score matching (PSM) is a method for reducing confounding bias in observational studies by balancing baseline characteristics between treatment groups, simulating randomization. Developed by Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), it estimates the probability of receiving treatment given observed covariates, then matches or weights treated and control individuals with similar treatment probabilities. Widely used in medicine, epidemiology, and policy evaluation when randomized trials are infeasible or unethical, enabling estimation of treatment effects while controlling for selection bias.