Zeitschrift für Evaluation: Issue 1/2025, 24. Volume Synthetic Control Method for Outcome Evaluation

The practice of outcome evaluation is often confronted with two central challenges: The identification of quantitative effects despite small-n settings and ensuring the causality assumption of these effects. The synthetic control method addresses both challenges by combining matching and time series approaches. In this article, the requirements for causal analyses of rare events are made explicit, the principles and variants of the method are presented and illustrated using the evaluation of a local level austerity commissioner. In addition, the article provides a brief insight into the specific contribution to evaluation practice and the development perspectives against the background of the influence of artificial intelligence on quantitative analysis.

Keywords
synthetic control method, outcome evaluation, causal analysis, austerity commissioner