Accounting for No-Shows in Experimental Evaluation Designs

Abstract

This article examines how to estimate the effect of a program in the presence of no- shows—persons who are assigned to the program but do not participate. The article briefly discusses the methodological problems involved, describes two current experimental evaluations that are subject to these problems, presents several estimators that overcome these problems, outlines the conditions necessary for these estimators to be feasible, and describes two extensions of the analysis that illustrate a potentially broad range of further applications.