Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. From now until the launch of Oxford Events, new events cannot be published or edited on OxTalks while all existing records are migrated to the new platform. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period.
From 16th, Oxford Events will launch on a new website: events.ox.ac.uk, and event submissions will resume. You will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
Standard methods for detecting discontinuities in conditional means are not applicable to outcomes that are complex, non-Euclidean objects like distributions, networks, or covariance matrices. This article develops a nonparametric test for jumps in conditional means when outcomes lie in a non-Euclidean metric space. Using local Fréchet regression, the method estimates a mean path on either side of a candidate cutoff. This extends existing k-sample tests to a non-parametric regression setting with metric-space valued outcomes. I establish the asymptotic distribution of the test and its consistency against contiguous alternatives. For this, I derive a central limit theorem for the local estimator of the conditional Fréchet variance and a consistent estimator of its asymptotic variance. Simulations confirm nominal size control and robust power in finite samples. Two empirical illustrations demonstrate the method’s ability to reveal discontinuities missed by scalar-based tests. I find sharp changes in (i) work-from-home compositions at an income threshold for non-compete enforceability and (ii) national input-output networks following the loss of preferential U.S. trade access. These findings show the value of analyzing regression outcomes in their native metric spaces.