IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/bejeap/vcontributions.3y2004i1n9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Instrumental Variables for Binary Treatments with Heterogenous Treatment Effects: A Simple Exposition

Author

Listed:
  • Manning Alan

Abstract

This note provides a simple exposition of what IV can and cannot estimate in a model with binary treatment variable and heterogenous treatment effects. It shows how linear IV is essentially a misspecification of functional form and the reason why linear IV estimates will generally depend on the instrument used is because of this misspecification. It shows that if one can estimate the correct functional form then the treatment effects are independent of the instruments used. However, the data may not be rich enough in practice to be able to identify these treatments effects without strong distributional assumptions. In this case, one will have to settle for estimations of treatment effects that are instrument-dependent.

Suggested Citation

  • Manning Alan, 2004. "Instrumental Variables for Binary Treatments with Heterogenous Treatment Effects: A Simple Exposition," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-12, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:contributions.3:y:2004:i:1:n:9
    DOI: 10.2202/1538-0645.1273
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1538-0645.1273
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1538-0645.1273?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angrist, J.D. & Imbens, G.W., 1991. "Sources of identifying information in evaluation models," Discussion Paper 1991-42, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dong, Yingying, 2010. "Kept back to get ahead? Kindergarten retention and academic performance," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 219-236, February.
    2. Lavinia Cristescu, 2009. "The Effect of Capital Market Liberalization in Eastern Europe: Economic Growth or Financial Crisis," Advances in Economic and Financial Research - DOFIN Working Paper Series 30, Bucharest University of Economics, Center for Advanced Research in Finance and Banking - CARFIB.
    3. Brendan Kline & Justin L. Tobias, 2008. "The wages of BMI: Bayesian analysis of a skewed treatment-response model with nonparametric endogeneity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(6), pages 767-793.
    4. Rohini Pande & Christopher Udry, 2005. "Institutions and Development:A View from Below," Working Papers 928, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    5. Alakent, Ekin & Goktan, M. Sinan & Khoury, Theodore A., 2020. "Is venture capital socially responsible? Exploring the imprinting effect of VC funding on CSR practices," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 35(3).
    6. Florence Kondylis, 2007. "Conflict-Induced Displacement and Labour Market Outcomes: Evidence from Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina," CEP Discussion Papers dp0777, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Kondylis, Florence, 2010. "Conflict displacement and labor market outcomes in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 235-248, November.
    8. M. Christopher Auld, 2012. "Using Observational Data to Identify the Causal Effects of Health-related Behaviour," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joshua D. Angrist, 2004. "Treatment effect heterogeneity in theory and practice," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(494), pages 52-83, March.
    2. Clint Harris, 2022. "Interpreting Instrumental Variable Estimands with Unobserved Treatment Heterogeneity: The Effects of College Education," Papers 2211.13132, arXiv.org.
    3. Yusuke Narita, 2018. "Experiment-as-Market: Incorporating Welfare into Randomized Controlled Trials," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2127r, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised May 2019.
    4. James Heckman & Jeffrey Smith & Christopher Taber, 1994. "Accounting for Dropouts in Evaluations of Social Experiments," NBER Technical Working Papers 0166, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. V. Joseph Hotz & Susan Williams McElroy & Seth G. Sanders, 2005. "Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 40(3).
    6. Battistin, Erich & Rettore, Enrico, 2008. "Ineligibles and eligible non-participants as a double comparison group in regression-discontinuity designs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 715-730, February.
    7. Pettersson-Lidbom, Per, 2012. "Does the size of the legislature affect the size of government? Evidence from two natural experiments," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 269-278.
    8. Thomas J. Kane & Cecilia E. Rouse, 1993. "Labor Market Returns to Two- and Four-Year Colleges: Is a Credit a Credit and Do Degrees Matter?," NBER Working Papers 4268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Cockx, Bart, 2003. "Vocational Training of Unemployed Workers in Belgium," IZA Discussion Papers 682, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Cockx, Bart & Bardoulat, Isabelle, 1999. "Vocational Training: Does it speed up the Transition Rate out of Unemployment ?," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 1999032, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    11. Antje Brunner & Jan Pieter Krahnen, 2008. "Multiple Lenders and Corporate Distress: Evidence on Debt Restructuring," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(2), pages 415-442.
    12. Alan Manning, 2004. "Instrumental Variables for Binary Treatments with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects: A Simple Exposition," CEP Discussion Papers dp0619, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. Wilbert Van Der Klaauw, 2008. "Regression–Discontinuity Analysis: A Survey of Recent Developments in Economics," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 22(2), pages 219-245, June.
    14. Duo Qin & Yanqun Zhang, 2013. "A History of Polyvalent Structural Parameters: the Case of Instrument Variable Estimators," Working Papers 183, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    15. James J. Heckman & Jeffrey A. Smith, 1995. "Assessing the Case for Social Experiments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 85-110, Spring.
    16. Erich Battistin & Enrico Rettore, 2002. "Testing for programme effects in a regression discontinuity design with imperfect compliance," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 165(1), pages 39-57, February.
    17. Pettersson Lidbom, Per, 2003. "Does the Size of the Legislature Affect the Size of Government? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Research Papers in Economics 2003:18, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    18. Erich Battistin & Enrico Rettore, 2003. "Another look at the regression discontinuity design," CeMMAP working papers CWP01/03, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    19. Hidehiko Ichimura & Christopher R. Taber, 2000. "Direct Estimation of Policy Impacts," NBER Technical Working Papers 0254, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. James J. Heckman, 1995. "Randomization as an Instrumental Variable," NBER Technical Working Papers 0184, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Instrumental variables; treatment effects; identification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C2 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:bejeap:v:contributions.3:y:2004:i:1:n:9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.