Université de Fribourg

Instrument-based estimation with binarized treatments : issues and tests for the exclusion restriction

Andresen, Martin Eckhoff ; Huber, Martin

(Working Papers SES ; 492)

When estimating local average and marginal treatment effects using instrumental variables (IV), multivalued endogenous treatments are frequently binarized based on a specific threshold in treatment support. However, such binarization introduces a violation of the IV exclusion if (i) the IV affects the multivalued treatment within support areas below and/or above the threshold and (ii) such...

Université de Fribourg

Including covariates in the regression discontinuity design

Frölich, Markus ; Huber, Martin

(Working Papers SES ; 489)

This paper proposes a fully nonparametric kernel method to account for observed covariates in regression discontinuity designs (RDD), which may increase precision of treatment effect estimation. It is shown that conditioning on covariates reduces the asymptotic variance and allows estimating the treatment effect at the rate of one-dimensional nonparametric regression, irrespective of the...

Université de Fribourg

Testing the validity of the compulsory schooling law instrument

Bolzern, Benjamin ; Huber, Martin

(Working Papers SES ; 480)

Changes in compulsory schooling laws have been proposed as an instrument for the endogenous choice of schooling. It has been argued that raising minimum schooling exogenously increases the educational attainment of a subset of pupils without directly affecting later life outcomes such as income or health. Using the method of Huber and Mellace (2015) and data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and...

Université de Fribourg

Evaluating local average and quantile treatment effects under endogeneity based on instruments : a review

Huber, Martin ; Wüthrich, Kaspar

(Working Papers SES ; 479)

This paper provides a review of methodological advancements in the evaluation of heterogeneous treatment effect models based on instrumental variable (IV) methods. We focus on models that achieve identification through a monotonicity assumption on the selection equation and analyze local average and quantile treatment effects for the subpopulation of compliers. We start with a comprehensive...