Spatiotemporal Difference-in-Differences: A Dynamic Mechanism of Socio-Economic Evaluation

Abstract

Advances in econometric modeling and analysis of spatial cross-sectional and spatial panel data assist in revealing the spatiotemporal characteristics behind socio-economic phenomena and improving prediction accuracy. Difference-in-differences (DID) is frequently used in causality inference and estimation of the treatment effect of the policy intervention in different time and space dimensions. Relying on flexible distributional hypotheses of treatment versus experiment groups on spillover, spatiotemporal DID provides space for innovation and alternatives, given the spatial heterogeneity, dependence, and proximity into consideration. This chapter gives a practical econometric evaluation of the dynamic mechanism in this spatiotemporal context as well as a toolkit for this fulfillment.