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On Quantile Treatment Effects, Rank Similarity,and Variation of Instrumental Variables

Sukjin Han, Haiqing Xu

arXiv 19 Oct 2025 · Econometrics

arXiv:2510.16681 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper develops a nonparametric framework to identify and estimate distributional treatment effects under nonseparable endogeneity. We begin by revisiting the widely adopted rank similarity (RS) assumption and characterizing it by the relationship it imposes between observed and counterfactual potential outcome distributions. The characterization highlights the restrictiveness of RS, motivating a weaker identifying condition. Under this alternative, we construct identifying bounds on the distributional treatment effects of interest through a linear semi-infinite programming (SILP) formulation. Our identification strategy also clarifies how richer exogenous instrument variation, such as multi-valued or multiple instruments, can further tighten these bounds. Finally, exploiting the SILP's saddle-point structure and Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions, we establish large-sample properties for the empirical SILP: consistency and asymptotic distribution results for the estimated bounds and associated solutions.

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56
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88
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56
distinct cited
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Most heavily cited references

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.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Milgrom, P. and I. Segal (2002) Envelope theorems for arbitrary choice sets1.000104100%
2Bonnans, J. F. and A. Shapiro (2000) Perturbation Analysis of Optimization Problems0.92843100%
3Imbens, G. W. and J. D. Angrist (1994) Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects0.87452100%
4Pomatto, L., P. Strack, and O. Tamuz (2020) Stochastic dominance under independent noise0.87452100%
5Chernozhukov, V. and C. Hansen (2005) An IV model of quantile treatment effects0.81142100%
6Fang, Z. and A. Santos (2019) Inference on directionally differentiable functions0.81142100%
7Vuong, Q. and H. Xu (2017) Counterfactual mapping and individual treatment effects in nonseparable models with binary endogeneity0.73732100%
8Shapiro, A (1991) Asymptotic analysis of stochastic programs0.64422100%
9Christensen, T. M. and B. Connault (2023) Counterfactual Sensitivity and Robustness0.51121100%
10Goff, L. and E. D. Mbakop (2025) Inference on the Value of a Linear Program, Working paper0.51121100%

Showing the top 10 of 56 scored citations.