Figure 118 Oct 2026From “What is the synthetic control method?”

The five states that make up synthetic California

Five of 38 donor states carry all of the weight. The method states the combination openly, so a reader can judge whether it is a plausible stand-in.

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Figure 1The five states that make up synthetic California

Source: Abadie et al. (2010), Table 2, p. 500. Weights of each state in the donor pool of 38 states; the other 33 states carry a weight of zero. The authors' estimate, not a re-estimation.

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A ADH10-C5 Synthetic California is a combination of five states; all others carry zero weight; Table 2 gives Utah 0.334, Nevada 0.234, Montana 0.199, Colorado 0.164 and Connecticut 0.069 (p. 500): "smoking trends in California prior to the passage of Proposition 99 is best reproduced by a combination of Colorado, Connecticut, Montana, Nevada, and Utah. All other states in the donor pool are assigned zero W-weights."Abadie, Diamond & Hainmueller. (2010)

Grades: A, verified against the printed page of the primary source · B, primary source, text layer only · C, authoritative secondary · D, reported.

From the essay

From the research bench

What is the synthetic control method?

A synthetic control builds the missing comparison for one treated unit from a weighted mix of untreated ones. It only works if the mix fits the past.

18 Oct 2026

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Isoglu, S. (2026). The five states that make up synthetic California [Figure]. isoglu.com. https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-what-is-the-synthetic-control-method-fig01/

BibTeX

@misc{isoglu-2026-what-is-the-synthetic-control-method-fig01,
  author = {Isoglu, Sinan},
  title = {{The five states that make up synthetic California}},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Figure 1, isoglu.com},
  url = {https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-what-is-the-synthetic-control-method-fig01/},
  note = {From the essay {What is the synthetic control method?}}
}

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<figure>
  <a href="https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-what-is-the-synthetic-control-method-fig01/">
    <img src="https://isoglu.com/social/isoglu-2026-what-is-the-synthetic-control-method-fig01.png" alt="Figure 1: The five states that make up synthetic California" width="3200" height="2400">
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  <figcaption>Figure 1: The five states that make up synthetic California. Source: Abadie et al. (2010), Table 2, p. 500. Weights of each state in the donor pool of 38 states; the other 33 states carry a weight of zero. The authors&#39; estimate, not a re-estimation. <a href="https://isoglu.com/insights/exhibits/isoglu-2026-what-is-the-synthetic-control-method-fig01/">View exhibit</a>.</figcaption>
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