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存在舍入情况下的阈值操纵量化:以美国饮用水铅监测为例

Quantifying Threshold Manipulation in the Presence of Rounding: The Case of Lead Monitoring in US Drinking Water
AER: Insights · 2025 · Tihitina Andarge、Dalia Ghanem、David A. Keiser、Gabriel Lade

中文摘要

许多法律规定与经济行为都依赖于阈值。因此,阈值操纵在多种情境下都是一个普遍关切的问题。现有的检测和量化阈值操纵的方法假定,在不存在操纵的反事实情形下,变量服从连续分布。当数据存在舍入时,这一假设便不成立;舍入在许多应用中十分普遍,且与操纵存在本质区别。本文提出了在舍入是数据显著特征时用于检验和量化阈值操纵的方法。我们通过一项考察《美国安全饮用水法》下铅监测中阈值操纵问题的实证应用,展示了该方法的实用性。

Abstract

Many laws and economic actions depend on thresholds. As a consequence, threshold manipulation is a common concern in a variety of settings. Existing methods for detecting and quantifying threshold manipulation assume a continuous counterfactual distribution absent manipulation. This assumption is violated in the presence of rounding, which is prevalent in many applications and distinct from manipulation. This paper develops methods for testing and quantifying threshold manipulation when rounding is a prominent feature of the data. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach in an empirical application examining threshold manipulation in lead monitoring under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act.
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