Local Asymptotics for Treatment Choice with Partial Identification

Abstract

We provide a new asymptotic framework to derive approximately optimal treatment assignments when sampling noise from data is compounded by fundamental uncertainty due to partial identification. We recenter the reduced-form parameter around its \emph{least-favorable} configuration and consider drifting parameter sequences that yield both diminishing levels of sampling uncertainty and of partial identification. We characterize the limiting decision problem as a normal location shift model with a suitable limiting identified set. We apply our results to treatment choice problems with contaminated outcomes, to robust welfare analyses with partially identified consumer surplus, and to the problem of aggregating experimental estimates for policy adoption.