Patrick Kline, Christopher R. Walters
arXiv 19 Jun 2017 · Statistics — Methodology · publishedEconometrica (2019) · 42 citations (OpenAlex)
arXiv:1706.05982 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text
Structural econometric methods are often criticized for being sensitive to functional form assumptions. We study parametric estimators of the local average treatment effect (LATE) derived from a widely used class of latent threshold crossing models and show they yield LATE estimates algebraically equivalent to the instrumental variables (IV) estimator. Our leading example is Heckman's (1979) two-step ("Heckit") control function estimator which, with two-sided non-compliance, can be used to compute estimates of a variety of causal parameters. Equivalence with IV is established for a semi-parametric family of control function estimators and shown to hold at interior solutions for a class of maximum likelihood estimators. Our results suggest differences between structural and IV estimates often stem from disagreements about the target parameter rather than from functional form assumptions per se. In cases where equivalence fails, reporting structural estimates of LATE alongside IV provides a simple means of assessing the credibility of structural extrapolation exercises.
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The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.
| Reference | Intensity | Mentions | Sections | Main text | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brinch, C. N., M. Mogstad, and M. Wiswall (2017) Beyond LATE with a discrete instrument | 1.000 | 5 | 5 | 100% |
| 2 | Imbens, G. W. and J. D. Angrist (1994) Identification and estimation of local average treatment effects | 1.000 | 5 | 3 | 100% |
| 3 | Heckman, J. J (1979) Sample selection bias as a specification error | 0.928 | 4 | 3 | 100% |
| 4 | Angrist, J. D. and J.-S. Pischke (2009) Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion | 0.843 | 3 | 3 | 100% |
| 5 | Vytlacil, E (2002) Independence, monotonicity, and latent index models: an equivalence result | 0.737 | 3 | 2 | 100% |
| 6 | Angrist, J. D (2004) Treatment effect heterogeneity in theory and practice | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 7 | Balke, A. and J. Pearl (1997) Bounds on treatment effects from studies with imperfect compliance | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 8 | Bjorklund, A. and R. Moffitt (1987) The estimation of wage gains and welfare gains in self-selection models | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 9 | Blundell, R. and R. L. Matzkin (2014) Control functions in nonseparable simultaneous equations models | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
| 10 | Heckman, J. J (1976) The common structure of statistical models of truncation, sample selection and limited dependent variables and a simple estimato… | 0.644 | 2 | 2 | 100% |
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