Summary We compare two program evaluation methodologies: the synthetic control method and the panel data approach. We apply both methods to estimate the effect of the political and economic integration of Hong Kong. The results obtained differ depending on the methodology used. We then conduct a simulation that shows that the synthetic control method results in a post‐treatment mean squared error, mean absolute percentage error, and mean error with a smaller interquartile range, whenever there is a good enough match. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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The pampe package for R implements the panel data approach method for program evaluation designed to estimate the causal effects of political interventions or treatments. This procedure exploits the dependence among cross-sectional units to construct a counterfactual of the treated unit(s), and it is an appropriate method for research events that occur at an aggregate level like countries or regions and that affect only one or a small number of units. The implementation of the pampe package is illustrated using data from Hong Kong and 24 other units, by examining the economic impact of the political and economic integration of Hong Kong with mainland China in 1997 and 2004 respectively.

This paper analyses the characteristics that lead parents to choose a particular school for their children in different Spanish regions. This choice is studied taking into account several school and family characteristics. We estimate the probability of parents choosing a particular school using a conditional logit model for different Spanish regions with data from PISA 2012. The main results indicate that the characteristics with the biggest influence on school choice are public/private, location, and reputation. As expected, some characteristics, like a school being private, and its socioeconomic composition, become more relevant as family wealth and parents' education level increases.