A Matched Design for Causal Inference With Survey Data: Evaluation of Medical Marijuana Legalization in Kentucky and Tennessee

Abstract

A concern surrounding marijuana legalization is that driving after marijuana use may become more prevalent. Survey data are valuable for estimating policy effects, however their observational nature and unequal sampling probabilities create challenges for causal inference. To estimate population-level effects using survey data, we propose a matched design and implement sensitivity analyses to quantify how robust conclusions are to unmeasured confounding. Both theoretical justification and simulation studies are presented. We found no support that marijuana legalization increased tolerant behaviors and attitudes toward driving after marijuana use, and these conclusions seem moderately robust to unmeasured confounding.

Keywords: causal inference; marijuana legalization; propensity score matching; sensitivity analysis; survey sampling inference.