IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2406.02835.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

When does IV identification not restrict outcomes?

Author

Listed:
  • Leonard Goff

Abstract

Many identification results in instrumental variables (IV) models hold without requiring any restrictions on the distribution of potential outcomes, or how those outcomes are correlated with selection behavior. This enables IV models to allow for arbitrary heterogeneity in treatment effects and the possibility of selection on gains in the outcome. I provide a necessary and sufficient condition for treatment effects to be point identified in a manner that does not restrict outcomes when the instruments take a finite number of values. The condition generalizes the well-known LATE monotonicity assumption, and unifies a wide variety of other known IV identification results. The result also yields a brute-force approach to reveal all selection models that allow for point identification of treatment effects without restricting outcomes, and then enumerate all of the identified parameters within each such selection model. The search uncovers new selection models that yield identification, provides impossibility results for others, and offers opportunities to relax assumptions on selection used in existing literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Leonard Goff, 2024. "When does IV identification not restrict outcomes?," Papers 2406.02835, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2024.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2406.02835
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.02835
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman & Sergio Urzua & Edward Vytlacil, 2006. "Understanding Instrumental Variables in Models with Essential Heterogeneity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 389-432, August.
    2. Sokbae Lee & Bernard Salanié, 2018. "Identifying Effects of Multivalued Treatments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(6), pages 1939-1963, November.
    3. Clément de Chaisemartin, 2017. "Tolerating defiance? Local average treatment effects without monotonicity," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), pages 367-396, July.
    4. Patrick Kline & Christopher R. Walters, 2016. "Evaluating Public Programs with Close Substitutes: The Case of HeadStart," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1795-1848.
    5. James J. Heckman & Edward Vytlacil, 2005. "Structural Equations, Treatment Effects, and Econometric Policy Evaluation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(3), pages 669-738, May.
    6. Arthur Lewbel, 2019. "The Identification Zoo: Meanings of Identification in Econometrics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(4), pages 835-903, December.
    7. Manu Navjeevan & Rodrigo Pinto & Andres Santos, 2023. "Identification and Estimation in a Class of Potential Outcomes Models," Papers 2310.05311, arXiv.org.
    8. Désiré Kédagni & Ismael Mourifié, 2020. "Generalized instrumental inequalities: testing the instrumental variable independence assumption," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 107(3), pages 661-675.
    9. Toru Kitagawa, 2015. "A Test for Instrument Validity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(5), pages 2043-2063, September.
    10. Ismael Mourifié & Yuanyuan Wan, 2017. "Testing Local Average Treatment Effect Assumptions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(2), pages 305-313, May.
    11. Sokbae Lee & Bernard Salani'e, 2020. "Treatment Effects with Targeting Instruments," Papers 2007.10432, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2024.
    12. Mogstad, Magne & Torgovitsky, Alexander & Walters, Christopher R., 2024. "Policy evaluation with multiple instrumental variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 243(1).
    13. Joshua D. Angrist & Kathryn Graddy & Guido W. Imbens, 2000. "The Interpretation of Instrumental Variables Estimators in Simultaneous Equations Models with an Application to the Demand for Fish," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 499-527.
    14. Magne Mogstad & Andres Santos & Alexander Torgovitsky, 2018. "Using Instrumental Variables for Inference About Policy Relevant Treatment Parameters," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(5), pages 1589-1619, September.
    15. James J. Heckman & Rodrigo Pinto, 2018. "Unordered Monotonicity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(1), pages 1-35, January.
    16. Hongyi Jiang & Zhenting Sun, 2023. "Testing Partial Instrument Monotonicity," Papers 2308.08390, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    17. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Vishal Kamat & Samuel Norris & Matthew Pecenco, 2023. "Identification in Multiple Treatment Models under Discrete Variation," Papers 2307.06174, arXiv.org.
    2. Bhuller, Manudeep & Sigstad, Henrik, 2024. "2SLS with multiple treatments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 242(1).
    3. Goff, Leonard, 2024. "A vector monotonicity assumption for multiple instruments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 241(1).
    4. Sun, Zhenting, 2023. "Instrument validity for heterogeneous causal effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 237(2).
    5. Kitagawa, Toru, 2021. "The identification region of the potential outcome distributions under instrument independence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 225(2), pages 231-253.
    6. Nadja van ’t Hoff & Arthur Lewbel & Giovanni Mellace, 2023. "Limited Monotonicity and the Combined Compliers LATE," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1059, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 25 Apr 2024.
    7. Nadja van 't Hoff, 2023. "Identifying Causal Effects of Discrete, Ordered and ContinuousTreatments using Multiple Instrumental Variables," Papers 2311.17575, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    8. Fusejima, Koki, 2024. "Identification of multi-valued treatment effects with unobserved heterogeneity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 238(1).
    9. Manu Navjeevan & Rodrigo Pinto & Andres Santos, 2023. "Identification and Estimation in a Class of Potential Outcomes Models," Papers 2310.05311, arXiv.org.
    10. Alvarez, Luis A.F. & Toneto, Rodrigo, 2024. "The interpretation of 2SLS with a continuous instrument: A weighted LATE representation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    11. Zhenting Sun & Kaspar Wuthrich, 2022. "Pairwise Valid Instruments," Papers 2203.08050, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    12. Sokbae Lee & Bernard Salanié, 2018. "Identifying Effects of Multivalued Treatments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(6), pages 1939-1963, November.
    13. Patrick Kline & Christopher R. Walters, 2019. "On Heckits, LATE, and Numerical Equivalence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(2), pages 677-696, March.
    14. Robert A. Moffitt & Matthew V. Zahn, 2019. "The Marginal Labor Supply Disincentives of Welfare: Evidence from Administrative Barriers to Participation," NBER Working Papers 26028, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Pereda-Fernández, Santiago, 2023. "Identification and estimation of triangular models with a binary treatment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 585-623.
    16. Kédagni, Désiré, 2023. "Identifying treatment effects in the presence of confounded types," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 479-511.
    17. Kamat, Vishal, 2019. "Identification with Latent Choice Sets," TSE Working Papers 19-1031, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    18. Luis Antonio Fantozzi Alvarez & Rodrigo Toneto, 2024. "The interpretation of 2SLS with a continuous instrument: a weighted LATE representation," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2024_11, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    19. Bartalotti, Otávio & Kédagni, Désiré & Possebom, Vitor, 2023. "Identifying marginal treatment effects in the presence of sample selection," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 565-584.
    20. Zhewen Pan & Zhengxin Wang & Junsen Zhang & Yahong Zhou, 2024. "Marginal treatment effects in the absence of instrumental variables," Papers 2401.17595, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2406.02835. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.