How does the option"outcome" work in psmatch2 in Stata? psmatch2 depvar [indepvars] [if exp] [in range] [, outcome(varlist)... in stata,
I just learned psm, I have some doubts about the role of outcome(varlist). I found a psm example (with 3 outcomes), I tried multiple times to generate a variable consisting of random numbers as the 4th outcome, but the psm result didn't change, so I wonder how does the option"outcome" work in psmatch2.
I searched for some information and some people say that outcome() is hardly involved in modeling in the whole process of PSM analysis calculation, which is more confusing to me.
Thank you.

The outcome is not used in propensity score matching; indeed, that is the whole point of propensity score matching: to avoid using the outcome when balancing the covariates. Eventually, you need to estimate the treatment effect on an outcome, and the outcomes you supply to the outcome() argument are those outcomes.
