In within-study comparison (WSC) designs, treatment effects from a nonexperimental design, such as an observational study or a regression-discontinuity design, are compared to results obtained from a well-designed randomized control trial with the same target population. The goal of the WSC is to assess whether nonexperimental and experimental designs yield the same results in field settings. A common analytic challenge with WSCs, however, is the choice of appropriate criteria for determining whether nonexperimental and experimental results replicate. This article examines different distance-based correspondence measures for assessing correspondence in experimental and nonexperimental estimates. Distance-based measures investigate whether the difference in estimates is small enough to claim equivalence of methods. We use a simulation study to examine the statistical properties of common correspondence measures and recommend a new and straightforward approach that combines traditional significance testing and equivalence testing in the same framework. The article concludes with practical advice on assessing and interpreting results in WSC contexts.

中文翻译：

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在研究内比较中评估实验和非实验估计之间的对应关系。

在研究内比较（WSC）设计中，将非实验性设计（例如观察性研究或回归间断设计）的治疗效果与精心设计的具有相同目标人群的随机对照试验的结果进行比较。WSC的目标是评估非实验性和实验性设计在田野环境中是否产生相同的结果。然而，WSC的一个常见分析挑战是选择合适的标准来确定是否复制非实验和实验结果。本文研究了用于评估实验和非实验估计中的对应关系的基于距离的不同对应方法。基于距离的度量方法调查估计差异是否小到足以主张方法的等效性。我们使用模拟研究来检查常见对应度量的统计属性，并建议一种新的，直接的方法，该方法在同一框架中结合了传统的重要性检验和等效检验。本文以在WSC环境中评估和解释结果的实用建议作为结尾。