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This paper aims to present the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) method in an accessible language to a broad research audience from a variety of management-related fields.

The paper describes the DiD method, starting with an intuitive explanation, goes through the main assumptions and the regression specification and covers the use of several robustness methods. Recurrent examples from the literature are used to illustrate the different concepts.

By providing an overview of the method, the authors cover the main issues involved when conducting DiD studies, including the fundamentals as well as some recent developments.

The paper can hopefully be of value to a broad range of management scholars interested in applying impact evaluation methods.

In confronting the challenge of climate change and progressing towards dual carbon goals, China is actively implementing low-carbon city pilot policy. This paper aims to focus on the potential impact of this policy on enterprise green governance, aiming to promote the reduction and balance of carbon emissions.

Based on the panel data of China's large-scale industrial enterprises from 2007 to 2013, this paper uses the Difference-in-differences (DID) method to study the impact and path mechanism of the implementation of low-carbon city pilot policy on enterprise green governance. Heterogeneity analysis is used to compare the effects of low-carbon city pilot policy in different regions, different enterprises and different industries.

The low-carbon pilot can indeed effectively enhance corporate green governance, a conclusion that still holds after a series of robustness tests. The low-carbon city pilot policy mainly enhances enterprise green governance through two paths: an industrial structure upgrade and enterprise energy consumption, and it improves green governance by reducing enterprise energy consumption through industrial structure upgrade. The impact of low-carbon city pilot policy on enterprise green governance shows significant differences across different regions, different enterprises and different industries.

This paper examines the impact of low-carbon city pilot policy on enterprise green governance. However, due to availability of data, there are still some limitations to be further tackled. The parallel trend test in this paper shows that the pilot policy has a significant positive effect on the green governance of enterprises. However, due to serious lack of data in some years, the authors only selected the enterprise data of a shorter period as our experimental data, which leads the results to still have certain deficiencies. For the verification of the impact mechanism, the conclusions obtained in this paper are relatively limited. Although all the mechanism tests are passed, the reliability of the results still needs to be further tested through future data samples. In addition, as the pilot policy of low-carbon cities is still in progress, the policy can be tracked and analysed in the future as more data are disclosed, and further research can be carried out through dimensional expansion.

Low-carbon city pilot policy plays an important role in inducing the green governance of enterprises. Therefore, policy makers can continue to strengthen the construction of low-carbon city pilots by refining pilot experience, building typical cases, actively promoting pilot policy experience, expanding pilot scope and enhancing the implementation efficiency of pilot policy nationwide, which will contribute to the optimization and upgrading of the regional industrial structure at the urban level and will provide experience and reference for the synergistic implementation plan of pollution reduction and carbon reduction.

The impact of the low-carbon city pilot policy on enterprise green governance not only exists in two separate paths of urban industrial upgrading and enterprise energy consumption but also exists in a chain transmission path from macro to micro. The authors find that the effect value of each influence path is different, and there is an obvious leading influence path for the role of enterprise green governance. Therefore, in the process of implementing a low-carbon city pilot policy, policies should be designed specifically for different mechanisms. Moreover, complementing and coordinating several paths should be advocated to give full play to the green governance effect of enterprises brought by different paths and to further expand the scope of industries and enterprises where policies play a role.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time, this paper connects macro mechanisms with micro mechanisms, discovering a macro-to-micro transmission mechanism in the process of low-carbon city pilot policy affecting enterprise green governance. That is, the low-carbon city pilot policy can facilitate industrial structure upgrading, resulting in reduced enterprise energy consumption, ultimately enhancing enterprise green governance.

In response to the pandemic, the Korean government introduced fiscal measures: including the Emergency Disaster Relief Funds which is the first-ever universal benefit in Korea. This paper identifies the effects of the measures on poverty, household income and household consumption expenditure under the disproportionate effect of the pandemic.

This study analysed the Korea Household Income and Expenditure Survey (KHIES) with Changes-in-Changes at five percentiles (5, 25, 50, 75 and 95%) instead of Difference-in-Differences (DD) because the parallel trends assumption of DD cannot be investigated due to the recent KHIES redesign. In addition, it also exmined the effects on vulnerable groups (e.g. female, elderly and young households).

COVID-19 has had prompt and disproportionate effects on the vulnerable, such as low-income, female and elderly households. However, the government measures had a limited effect. First, the measures could not mitigate the initial income reduction and only had temporary positive effects on income and consumption expenditure. Second, young households tended to save the relief instead of present consumption. Lastly, education disparity was observed at 25 and 50%. Therefore, this study suggests that response measures need to be sustainable and concentrated on the vulnerable.

A large literature estimated effects on either household income or household consumption expenditure, and focused on macroeconomic indices (e.g. marginal propensity to consumption). This study analysed both income (poverty) and consumption expenditure and found policy implications for better welfare system in an economic downturn.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the impact and its mechanism on the transfer of agricultural labor forces in the surrounding areas resulting from the establishment of a natural reserve, which holds great significance. The significance of this analysis is on the ecological protection of the natural reserve and the coordinated development of local social economy.

This study first performs an analysis on the impact and its mechanism on the establishment of the natural reserve on the transfer of agricultural labor forces from two aspects, which are push and pull factors. Then, based on county panel data in Jiangxi Province from 1995 to 2012, this study builds a generalized difference-in-difference model and performs an empirical study on the impact, heterogeneity and its mechanism on the establishment of the natural reserve on the transfer of agricultural labor forces.

The empirical analysis reveals that the establishment of natural reserves would significantly promote the transfer of agricultural labor forces to non-agricultural sectors. The robust test and placebo test with changed estimation methods verify the robust of the result. The result passes the parallel trend test and shows that the impact is most significant within one year after the implementation of the policy. From the mechanism analysis, the impact mainly comes from the “push” effect brought by the restricted development of agricultural production and primary industry on agricultural labor forces, and the “pull” effect brought by the development of local tertiary industry.

The conclusion of this study enriches the understanding of the internal mechanism between the establishment of natural reserves and the transfer of agricultural labor forces from the push and pull factors, and can provide reference for formulating policies to promote the coordinated development of natural reserve construction and regional social economy.

This study aims to examine the impact of housing construction on single-family housing values and the implications for urban development.

To achieve this objective, the author used the difference-in-difference methodology to examine the effect of multifamily and single-family housing construction on surrounding single-family homes in Stockholm, Sweden. The author analysed data from approximately 480 housing construction projects between 2009 and 2014 and 17,000 single-family detached house transactions between 2005 and 2018.

The research found that multifamily construction projects did not affect the value of surrounding single-family homes, while single-family home construction had a negative impact. The author attributes this result to single-family housing projects typically located in areas with initially positive externalities, while multifamily housing projects are often located on the edge of areas with negative externalities before construction.

The research is limited by its focus on a specific geographic area and time frame, and future research could expand the scope to include other cities and regions and different periods. Additionally, further research could examine the impact of housing construction on other economic factors beyond housing values.

The research has practical implications for urban planners and policymakers. They should consider the potential negative impact of new single-family home construction on existing single-family housing areas while balancing the need for new housing in urban areas. By carefully evaluating construction locations, policymakers can create more sustainable, livable and equitable urban environments that benefit all members of society.

This research paper contributes to the field of housing economics by examining the impact of housing construction on single-family housing values in the context of urban development and climate change mitigation. Using a difference-in-difference methodology, the study provides evidence of the price effect of multifamily and single-family housing construction on surrounding single-family homes, which has important policy implications for urban planners and policymakers. By identifying the negative impact of single-family home construction on surrounding areas and highlighting the need for careful evaluation of construction locations, the research provides valuable insights for creating sustainable, livable and equitable urban environments that benefit all members of society.

Inflation targeting has increasingly become a popular monetary framework since its first introduction in New Zealand at the beginning of 1990. However, the causality effects of this policy on economic performance, particularly in periods of economic turmoil remain controversial. Thus, this paper re-examines the treatment effect of inflation targeting on two important macro indicators which are inflation rate and output growth with the focus on emerging market economies. The global financial crisis, which is known as the great recession since the last decade, is investigated as an exogenous shock to test for the effectiveness of this popular regime.

The difference-in-difference approach in the fixed-model is employed for this investigation using a balanced panel data of 54 countries with 15 inflation-targeting countries for the period 2002 to 2010.

The examination finds that there is no significant difference in terms of the inflation rate and gross domestic product growth over the whole research period between the treatment and control groups. However, the outcome suggests that emerging economies can control the increase in inflation rate when the economy has to cope with the exogenous uncertainties.

This finding indicates important policy implications for central banks in many countries.

Inflation targeting can help emerging countries to reduce an increase in inflation rate in the crisis period without many trade-offs in the growth of output.

Adolescent pregnancy stands as a societal challenge, compelling young individuals to prematurely discontinue their education. Conversely, an expansion of high school education can potentially diminish rates of adolescent pregnancy, given that educational attainment stands as the foremost risk factor influencing sexual initiation, the use of contraceptive methods during initial sexual encounters and fertility. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of the implementation of the public educational policy introducing full-time schools (FTS) for high schools in the state of Ceará, Brazil, on early pregnancy rates.

Using the difference-in-differences method with multiple time periods, we measured the average effect of this staggered treatment on the treated municipalities.

The main result indicates a reduction of 0.849 percentage points in the teenage pregnancy rate. Concerning dynamic effects, the establishment of FTS in treated municipalities results in a 1.183–1.953 percentage point decrease in teenage pregnancy rates, depending on the timing of exposure. We explored heterogeneous effects within socioeconomically vulnerable municipalities, yet discerned no impact on this group. Rigorous tests confirm the robustness of the results.

This paper aims to contribute to: (1) the consolidation of research on the subject, given the absence of such research in Brazil to the best of our knowledge; (2) the advancement and analysis of evidence-based public policy and (3) the utilization of novel longitudinal data and methodology to evaluate adolescent pregnancy rates.

This study aims to examine whether announcements of mandatory sustainability disclosure affect corporate sustainability performance (CSP).

The authors use a quasi-experiment provided by mandatory sustainability disclosure announcements that occurred in 21 countries from 2006–2016. A difference-in-differences method is adopted. The authors restrict the drawing of all candidate treatment and control firms to a pool of firms that did not disclose sustainability information one year before the announcements.

The authors find that the announcements of mandatory sustainability disclosure are positively related to CSP. The positive effect is more pronounced for firms in countries with higher anticipation effects and lower awareness effects. Specifically, the authors find that the effect of the announcements is more pronounced in a country where the rule of law is higher and stakeholders are less likely to initiate communication about sustainability with firms, and with fewer active participants in and signatories to the United Nations Global Compact initiative. The findings hold under different robustness analyses.

The study enriches the knowledge about the effect of the announcements of comprehensive mandatory sustainability disclosure by analysing the consequences of these announcements. In the contribution to this growing stream of research, the authors provide evidence on the consequences of the announcements based on a cross-country sample and importantly, focusses on the non-economic consequences.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate benefits to debt reduction by using the natural experiment provided by the debt relief programs: the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative launched by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in 1996 and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative extension in 2005.

The authors apply a time-shifted difference-in-differences strategy to evaluate the effects of this intervention. The date of each country’s decision to participate in the program is used as one treatment point while the date of the completion of the debt relief program is used as another treatment point. The exercise compares different economic outcomes such as domestic and foreign investment, schooling, and employment of the treated observations to the counterfactual of untreated country-years. The period between the decision and completion points is a short run while the period after the completion point is considered a long run.

The authors found that debt relief increased capital investment as much as 1.63 percent in the short run and 5.79 percent in the long run. However, there was no effect on foreign direct investment suggesting that debt overhang does not affect incentives of foreign investors. Output and schooling enrollment increased both in the short and long run.

This paper exploits a natural experiment of debt relief in a number of developing countries to shed light on the possible benefits to debt reduction. The authors are able to separate the short- and long-run effects of debt reduction. The finding that domestic but not foreign investment responds to debt reduction is suggestive of the differences in incentives across these two sources of investment.

This study aims to take advantage of exporters’ product codes and examine the effects of government subsidization on corporate product strategies by focusing on the dimension of product differentiation.

This study uses harmonized system (HS) product codes to construct a novel measure of product differentiation among a sample of Chinese exporters during 2000–2012. It uses propensity score matching to construct a comparable sample of control firms for exporters receiving government subsidies, and then a difference-in-differences (DID) analysis is conducted.

This study finds that product differentiation decreases immediately upon receiving a government subsidy. This finding suggests that in an emerging market, firms use their subsidy to imitate competitors rather than increase innovation. Further analyses show that this effect is concentrated among wholly foreign-owned enterprises and firms that focus on general trade rather than processing trade. In addition, the authors find some evidence that government subsidization leads to an increase in the number of product lines and decreases in domestic value added and export product quality.

This study constructs a novel measure of product differentiation for a large sample of Chinese exporters and provides insights that government subsidization can affect corporate product strategies.