Partial Identification of Discrete Counterfactual Distributions with Sequential Update of Information

Stefan Boes

No 918, SOI - Working Papers from Socioeconomic Institute - University of Zurich

Abstract: The credibility of standard instrumental variables assumptions is often under dispute. This paper imposes weak monotonicity in order to gain information on counterfactual outcomes, but avoids independence or exclusion restrictions. The outcome process is assumed to be sequentially ordered, building up and depending on the information level of agents. The potential outcome distribution is assumed to weakly increase (or decrease) with the instrument, conditional on the continuation up to a certain stage. As a general result, the counterfactual distributions can only be bounded, but the derived bounds are informative compared to the no-assumptions bounds thus justifying the instrumental variables terminology. The construction of bounds is illustrated in two data examples.

Keywords: nonparametric bounds; treatment effects; endogeneity; binary choice; monotone instrumental variables; policy evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C25 C35 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/51927/1/wp0918.pdf first version, 2009 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:soz:wpaper:0918

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