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Quantifying Threshold Manipulation in the Presence of Rounding: The Case of Lead Monitoring in US Drinking Water

Tihitina Andarge et al.

American Economic Review: Insights2025https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20240258article
AJG 3ABDC A*
Weight
0.37

Abstract

Many laws and economic actions depend on thresholds. As a consequence, threshold manipulation is a common concern in a variety of settings. Existing methods for detecting and quantifying threshold manipulation assume a continuous counterfactual distribution absent manipulation. This assumption is violated in the presence of rounding, which is prevalent in many applications and distinct from manipulation. This paper develops methods for testing and quantifying threshold manipulation when rounding is a prominent feature of the data. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach in an empirical application examining threshold manipulation in lead monitoring under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20240258

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@article{tihitina2025,
  title        = {{Quantifying Threshold Manipulation in the Presence of Rounding: The Case of Lead Monitoring in US Drinking Water}},
  author       = {Tihitina Andarge et al.},
  journal      = {American Economic Review: Insights},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20240258},
}

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Quantifying Threshold Manipulation in the Presence of Rounding: The Case of Lead Monitoring in US Drinking Water

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Evidence weight

0.37

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.16 × 0.4 = 0.06
M · momentum0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.