Case study: California Proposition 99

Why this case matters

Prop99 is often the first policy example people encounter when learning synthetic control. It is intuitive, policy-relevant, and easy to explain in a classroom or lab meeting.

Study defaults in tscfbench

• dataset id: california_prop99
• treated unit: California
• intervention year: 1989
• outcome: cigsale

Suggested command

python -m tscfbench make-canonical-spec --study-ids prop99 --data-source snapshot --no-external -o prop99.json
python -m tscfbench run-canonical prop99.json -o prop99_results.json

Teaching tip

Use Prop99 to introduce space placebos before moving on to more technically involved inference add-ons.