buildCaliper {matchMulti}

Construct propensity score caliper

Description

Fits a propensity score for an individual-level or group-level treatment, computes a caliper for the propensity score (based on a fractional number of standard deviations provided by the user), and creates a matrix containing information about which treated-control pairings are excluded by the caliper.

Usage

buildCaliper(data, treatment, ps.vars, group.id = NULL, caliper = 0.2)

Arguments

data

A data frame containing the treatment variable, the variables to be used in fitting the propensity score and (if treatment is at the group level) a group ID.

treatment

Name of the treatment indicator.

ps.vars

Vector of names of variables to use in fitting the propensity score.

group.id

Name of group ID variable, if applicable.

caliper

Desired size of caliper, in number of standard deviations of the fitted propensity score.

Details

The treatment variable should be binary with 1 indicating treated units and 0 indicating controls. When group.id is NULL, treatment is assumed to be at the individual level and the propensity score is fitted using the matrix data. When a group ID is specified, data frame data is first aggregated into groups, with variables in ps.vars replaced by their within-group means, and the propensity score is fitted on the group matrix.

Value

A matrix with nrow equal to the number of treated individuals or groups and ncol equal to the number of control individuals, with 0 entries indicating pairings permitted by the caliper and Inf entries indicating forbidden pairings.

Author(s)

Luke Keele, Penn State University, [e-mail]

Sam Pimentel, University of California, Berkeley, [e-mail]

Examples

	## Not run: 
# Load Catholic school data
data(catholic_schools)

student.cov <- c('minority','female','ses','mathach')

# Check balance student balance before matching
balanceTable(catholic_schools[c(student.cov,'sector')],  treatment = 'sector')

#fit a propensity score caliper on mean values of student covariates within schools
school.caliper <- buildCaliper(data = catholic_schools, treatment = 'sector',
	ps.vars = student.cov, group.id = 'school')

#Match schools but not students within schools
match.simple <- matchMulti(catholic_schools, treatment = 'sector', 
	school.caliper = school.caliper, school.id = 'school', match.students = FALSE)

#Check balance after matching - this checks both student and school balance
balanceMulti(match.simple, student.cov = student.cov)

## End(Not run)