| dc.description.abstract | The synthetic control method (SCM) has been used to assess the impact of a natural disaster, conflict, and political change. The SCM shows an efficient and clear approach for selecting control units based on similarity and provides statistical inference by conducting placebo studies. The SCM is an analytical tool comparing the treated unit with the non-treated unit. The non-treated unit (hereinafter the donor pool) is the group with similar characteristics of the treated unit. Only difference between the two groups is the experience of the treatment (hereinafter the intervention).
The Tōhoku earthquake which occurred in March 2011 is the analysis’ intervention. I selected Japan as a treated unit and the donor pool was consisted of 37 countries from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The outcome variable is Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission per capita and the intervention window is 1995-2014 (pre-intervention: 1995-2010 and post-intervention: 2011-2014).
The results indicate a positive movement in GHG emission as a result of the earthquake. Placebo studies, leave-one-out tests, and the ratio between post to pre-intervention mean squared prediction error (MSPE), are performed to evaluate the statistical inferences of the analysis. All the tests provide robust evidence and statistical significance of the results. Regardless of the existence of nuclear power facilities in the donor pool, the graphical results almost provide the same direction in the GHG emission. | en |
