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Testing the Validity of the Sibling Sex Ratio Instrument

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  • Martin Huber

Abstract

We test the validity of the sibling sex ratio instrument suggested by Angrist and Evans using the methods proposed by Kitagawa and Huber and Mellace. The sex ratio of the first two siblings is arguably randomly assigned and influences the probability of having a third child, which makes it a candidate instrument for fertility when estimating the effect of fertility on female labor supply. However, identification hinges on the random assignment of the instrument, an instrumental exclusion restriction, and the monotonicity of fertility in the instrument. We find that the instrumental variable tests of Kitagawa and Huber and Mellace do not point to a violation of these assumptions in the Angrist and Evans data (which can, however, not be ruled out even asymptotically as the tests cannot detect all possible violations).

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Huber, 2015. "Testing the Validity of the Sibling Sex Ratio Instrument," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 29(1), pages 1-14, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:labour:v:29:y:2015:i:1:p:1-14
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/labr.12045
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    Cited by:

    1. Sara Cools & Simen Markussen & Marte Strøm, 2017. "Children and Careers: How Family Size Affects Parents’ Labor Market Outcomes in the Long Run," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(5), pages 1773-1793, October.
    2. Stacey H. Chen & Yen-Chien Chen & Jin-Tan Liu, 2019. "The Impact of Family Composition on Educational Achievement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 54(1), pages 122-170.
    3. Thomas Carr & Toru Kitagawa, 2021. "Testing Instrument Validity with Covariates," Papers 2112.08092, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2023.
    4. Julia Schmieder, 2020. "Fertility as a Driver of Maternal Employment," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1882, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. James Bisbee & Rajeev Dehejia & Cristian Pop-Eleches & Cyrus Samii, 2017. "Local Instruments, Global Extrapolation: External Validity of the Labor Supply-Fertility Local Average Treatment Effect," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 35(S1), pages 99-147.
    6. Jan Priebe, 2020. "Quasi-experimental evidence for the causal link between fertility and subjective well-being," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 839-882, July.
    7. Guber, Raphael, 2018. "Instrument Validity Tests with Causal Trees: With an Application to the Same-sex Instrument," MEA discussion paper series 201805, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    8. Janna Bergsvik & Sara Cools & Rannveig K. Hart, 2023. "Explaining Residential Clustering of Large Families," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 39(1), pages 1-28, December.
    9. Schmieder, Julia, 2021. "Fertility as a driver of maternal employment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    10. Öberg, Stefan, 2021. "The casual effect of fertility: The multiple problems with instrumental variables for the number of children in families," SocArXiv peuvz, Center for Open Science.

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