Causal Inference Methods for Policy Evaluation

3-Instrumental Variables

Jacopo Mazza

Utrecht School of Economics

2026

The Benefits of Education

Public Expenditures in Education in the EU

Public Expenditures in Education in the EU

  • EU countries spent on average 4.7% of their GDP on education in 2022.
  • The Netherlands spent 5%.
  • That’s about 56.27 billion euros.

The Benefits of Education

  1. Makes people happier
  1. Makes people healthier
  1. Reduces poverty
  1. Increases economic growth
  1. Reduces crime
  1. Reduces inequality
  1. Increases democracy
  1. Increases social cohesion
  1. Increases innovation
  1. Makes people wealthier

Does Education Make You Rich?

Does Education Make You Rich?

  • Clear positive relation between education and income.

  • But is it education that causes higher income?

  • Can we say that: \[E(\text{income}^0|\text{college})=E(\text{income}^0|\text{high school})\text{?}\]

  • Or is it that people who go to college are different from those who don’t?

The Path to Wealth

The Path to Wealth

UnobservABILITY

  • Innate individual ability affects both education and income
  • Ability is unobservable
  • We cannot control for it
  • In the short regression: \[\text{income}=\beta_0+\beta_1\text{education}+\epsilon\] \(\beta_1\) is biased1
  • Ability is an omitted variable

The Omitted Variable Bias

  • The real model is: \[\text{income}=\beta_0+\beta_1\text{education}+\beta_2\text{ability}+\epsilon\]

  • But we estimate: \[\text{income}=\hat{\beta}_0+\hat{\beta}_1\text{education}+\hat{\epsilon}\]

  • Then: \[\hat{\beta}_1=\beta_1+\beta_2\frac{\text{Cov}(\text{education},\text{ability})}{\text{Var}(\text{education})}\]

Instrumental Variables to the Rescue

  • The issue is that \(\text{Cov}(\text{education},\text{ability})\neq0\)

  • But if we had a variable \(Z\) that randomizes education?

  • We could use \(Z\) as a randomization device affecting education uncorrelated with ability

  • This is the idea behind Instrumental Variables (IV)

  • An IV isolates the variation between treatment and outcome that is uncorrelated with the omitted variable

The Causal Path to Wealth

How IV Estimation Works

  • IV estimation mimics a randomized experiment
  • IV statistically isolates the part of the treatment that is driven by the instrument:

  1. Use the instrument to explain the treatment

  2. Remove any part of the treatment that is not explained by the instrument

  3. Use the instrument to explain the outcome

  4. Remove any part of the outcome that is not explained by the instrument

  5. Look at the relationship between the remaining part of the outcome and the remaining part of the treatment

The IV Assumptions

  1. Relevance: The instrument is correlated with the treatment
  1. Validity: The instrument is uncorrelated with the omitted variable1
  • Relevance can be tested just regressing the treatment on the instrument
  • Validity is untestable

The Causal Path to Wealth

IV Application

Quarter of Birth as an IV

  • Angrist and Krueger (1991)1 use the quarter of birth as an IV for education
  • The idea is that the quarter of birth is random
  • But it affects the age at which children start school in the US

How the Quarter of Birth Affects Education

People Born Later in the Year Study Longer

People Born Later in the Year Study Longer

  • Until the 1947 cohort people born later in the year have more years of education

  • This tells us that quarter of birth affects education

  • This is the first condition for the IV to be good

  • This is called the first stage

People Born Later in the Year Earn Higher Wages

People Born Later in the Year Earn Higher Wages

  • Why would quarter of birth affect wages?

  • Because it affects education!

  • The fact that it does tell us that quarter of birth affects income through education

  • The relationship between quarter of birth and income is the reduced form

The First Stage Estimates

Outcome variable Birth Cohort I II III
Total schooling 1930-1939 -0.124 -0.86 -0.015
(0.017) (0.017) (0.016)
1940–1949 -0.085 -0.035 -0.017
(0.012) (0.012) (0.011)
High school grad 1930-1939 -0.019 -0.020 -0.004
(0.002) (0.002) (0.002)
1940–1949 -0.015 -0.012 -0.002
(0.001) (0.001) (0.001)
College grad 1930-1939 0.003 0.002 0.002
(0.002) (0.002) (0.002)
1940–1949 0.004 0.000 0.000
(0.002) (0.002) (0.002)

The First Stage Estimates

Outcome variable Birth Cohort I II III
Total schooling 1930-1939 -0.124 -0.86 -0.015
(0.017) (0.017) (0.016)
1940–1949 -0.085 -0.035 -0.017
(0.012) (0.012) (0.011)
High school grad 1930-1939 -0.019 -0.020 -0.004
(0.002) (0.002) (0.002)
1940–1949 -0.015 -0.012 -0.002
(0.001) (0.001) (0.001)
College grad 1930-1939 0.003 0.002 0.002
(0.002) (0.002) (0.002)
1940–1949 0.004 0.000 0.000
(0.002) (0.002) (0.002)

  • Angrist and Krueger use three dummies as instruments: \(Z_1\), \(Z_2\), and \(Z_3\)

  • They estimate the following first stage: \[S_i= X\pi_{10}+\pi_{11}Z_1+\pi_{12}Z_2+\pi_{13}Z_3+\eta_1\]

  • As expected the coefficients on the dummies are negative and significant

  • The effect of quarter of birth on college graduation is 0

  • This is consistent with the fact that quarter of birth affects education for high school dropouts

The Effect of Schooling on Wages

Independent variable OLS 2SLS
Years of schooling 0.0711 0.0891
(0.0003) (0.0161)
9 Year-of-birth dummies Yes Yes
8 Region-of-residence dummies No No

  • After we have the first stage estimates we can finally estimate the effect of education on income

  • This is the second stage

  • The OLS estimate is 0.0711

  • The IV estimate is 0.0891

How to Estimate IV

The Wald Estimator

[Effect of Z on Y] = [Effect of Z on D] * [Effect of D on Y]

\[\rho=\phi\times\lambda\] \[\lambda=\frac{\rho}{\phi}=\frac{𝐸[𝑌_𝑖│𝑍_𝑖=1]−𝐸[𝑌_𝑖│𝑍_𝑖=0]}{𝐸[𝐷_𝑖│𝑍_𝑖=1]−𝐸[𝐷_𝑖│𝑍_𝑖=0]} \]

Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS)

  • The most common way to estimate IV is through 2SLS:
    1. Regress the treatment on the instrument \[X=\gamma_0+\gamma_1Z+\gamma_2W+\eta\]
    2. Use the fitted values from the first stage to estimate the second stage: \[Y=\beta_0+\beta_1\hat{X}+\beta_2W+\nu\]
  • This is all estimated by OLS

The 2SLS vs. Wald

(2SLS) Estimator can:

  • Handle multiple IVs

  • Add control variables

  • Handle multiple endogenous variables / treatments

  • Handle continuous endogenous variables / treatments

  • Include continuous instrumental variables

One vs. Many IVs

One endogenous variable, one IV, and no controls, then:

  • Reduced Form:
    • comparing means: \(\rho = E[Y_i|Z_i=1] - E[Y_i|Z_i=0]\)
    • as a regression: \(Y_i = \alpha_0 + \rho Z_i + \epsilon_{0i}\)
  • First Stage:
    • comparing means: \(\phi = E[D_i|Z_i=1] - E[D_i|Z_i=0]\)
    • as a regression: \(D_i = \alpha_1 + \phi Z_i + \epsilon_{1i}\)
  • Second Stage:
    • comparing means: \(\lambda = E[Y_i|D_i=1] - E[Y_i|D_i=0]\)
    • as a regression: \(Y_i = \alpha_2 + \lambda_{SLS}(\widehat{D_i}) + \epsilon_{2i}\)

Many endogenous variables, many IVs, and controls, then:

  • First Stage: \(D_i = \alpha_1 + \alpha_{1X} X_i + \phi_1 Z_{1i} + \phi_2 Z_{2i} + \epsilon_{1i}\)

  • Second Stage: \(Y_i = \alpha_2 + \alpha_{2X} X_i + \lambda_{2SLS}(\widehat{D_i}) + \epsilon_{2i}\)

  • Reduced Form: \(Y_i = \alpha_0 + \alpha_{0X} X_i + \rho_1 Z_{1i} + \rho_2 Z_{2i} + \epsilon_{0i}\)

The 2SLS in R

To see a practical application of 2SLS in R, we will follow a paper by Card (1995)1 on the effect of education on wages.

  • Card uses college proximity in the US as an IV for education

  • Data are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) 1966

  • Data for about 5,500 men

The 2SLS in R

# Load necessary libraries
library(AER)
library(haven)
library(tidyverse)

# Define a function to read data from a specified URL
read_data <- function(df) {
  # Construct the full URL
  full_path <- paste("https://github.com/scunning1975/mixtape/raw/master/", df, sep = "")
  # Read the .dta file from the URL
  df <- read_dta(full_path)
  return(df)
}

# Use the function to read the 'card.dta' dataset
card <- read_data("card.dta")

# Attach the dataframe to make its columns directly accessible as variables
attach(card)

# Define the variables for the regression analyses
Y1 <- lwage  # Dependent variable
Y2 <- educ   # Endogenous variable
X1 <- cbind(exper, black, south, married, smsa)  # Exogenous variables
X2 <- nearc4  # Instrument

# Perform an OLS regression
ols_reg <- lm(Y1 ~ Y2 + X1)  # Y1 is the dependent variable, Y2 and X1 are the independent variables
summary(ols_reg)  # Display the results of the OLS regression

# Perform a 2SLS regression
iv_reg = ivreg(Y1 ~ Y2 + X1 | X1 + X2)  # Y1 is the dependent variable, Y2 and X1 are the independent variables, X1 and X2 are the instruments
summary(iv_reg)  # Display the results of the 2SLS regression

Call:
lm(formula = Y1 ~ Y2 + X1)

Residuals:
     Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max 
-1.59924 -0.23035  0.01812  0.23046  1.36797 

Coefficients:
             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept)  5.063317   0.063740  79.437   <2e-16 ***
Y2           0.071173   0.003482  20.438   <2e-16 ***
X1exper      0.034152   0.002214  15.422   <2e-16 ***
X1black     -0.166027   0.017614  -9.426   <2e-16 ***
X1south     -0.131552   0.014969  -8.788   <2e-16 ***
X1married   -0.035871   0.003401 -10.547   <2e-16 ***
X1smsa       0.175787   0.015458  11.372   <2e-16 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1

Residual standard error: 0.3702 on 2996 degrees of freedom
  (7 observations deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared:  0.305, Adjusted R-squared:  0.3036 
F-statistic: 219.2 on 6 and 2996 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

The 2SLS in R

# Load necessary libraries
library(AER)
library(haven)
library(tidyverse)

# Define a function to read data from a specified URL
read_data <- function(df) {
  # Construct the full URL
  full_path <- paste("https://github.com/scunning1975/mixtape/raw/master/", df, sep = "")
  # Read the .dta file from the URL
  df <- read_dta(full_path)
  return(df)
}

# Use the function to read the 'card.dta' dataset
card <- read_data("card.dta")

# Attach the dataframe to make its columns directly accessible as variables
attach(card)

# Define the variables for the regression analyses
Y1 <- lwage  # Dependent variable
Y2 <- educ   # Endogenous variable
X1 <- cbind(exper, black, south, married, smsa)  # Exogenous variables
X2 <- nearc4  # Instrument

# Perform an OLS regression
ols_reg <- lm(Y1 ~ Y2 + X1)  # Y1 is the dependent variable, Y2 and X1 are the independent variables
summary(ols_reg)  # Display the results of the OLS regression

# Perform a 2SLS regression
iv_reg = ivreg(Y1 ~ Y2 + X1 | X1 + X2)  # Y1 is the dependent variable, Y2 and X1 are the independent variables, X1 and X2 are the instruments
summary(iv_reg)  # Display the results of the 2SLS regression

Call:
ivreg(formula = Y1 ~ Y2 + X1 | X1 + X2)

Residuals:
     Min       1Q   Median       3Q      Max 
-1.81301 -0.23805  0.01766  0.24727  1.32278 

Coefficients:
             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)    
(Intercept)  4.162476   0.849590   4.899 1.01e-06 ***
Y2           0.124164   0.049956   2.485  0.01299 *  
X1exper      0.055588   0.020286   2.740  0.00618 ** 
X1black     -0.115686   0.050741  -2.280  0.02268 *  
X1south     -0.113165   0.023244  -4.869 1.18e-06 ***
X1married   -0.031975   0.005087  -6.286 3.73e-10 ***
X1smsa       0.147707   0.030895   4.781 1.83e-06 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1

Residual standard error: 0.3843 on 2996 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-Squared: 0.2513, Adjusted R-squared: 0.2498 
Wald test: 139.8 on 6 and 2996 DF,  p-value: < 2.2e-16

Using College Proximity to Estimate Returns to Education

OLS 2SLS
Education 0.071 0.124
(0.003) (0.050)
First Stage Instrument
College in the county 0.327
Robust standard error (0.082)
F statistic for IV in first stage 15.767
N 3,003 3,003

Using College Proximity to Estimate Returns to Education

OLS 2SLS
Education 0.071 0.124
(0.003) (0.050)
First Stage Instrument
College in the county 0.327
Robust standard error (0.082)
F statistic for IV in first stage 15.767
N 3,003 3,003
  • The OLS estimate of the return to education is 0.071
  • The IV estimate of the return to education is 0.124
  • Having a college in the county increases the probability of going to college by 0.327
  • The first stage F-statistic is 15.7671
  • As a rule of thumb, the first stage F-statistic should be above 10

When Instruments are Weak

The First Stage F-Statistic

  • The first assumption of IV is that the instrument is correlated with the treatment
  • This is tested by the first stage F-statistic
  • A rule of thumb is that the first stage F-statistic should be above 101
  • If the first stage F-statistic is below 10, the instrument is weak

The Weak Instruments Problem

  • The instrument \(Z\) and the endogenous variable \(X\) need to be strongly correlated
  • If the instrument is weak, the IV estimate is biased
  • To see why, keep in mind that the IV estimate is \(\hat{\beta}_{IV}=\frac{\text{Cov}(Y,Z)}{\text{Cov}(X,Z)}\)
  • If \(\text{Cov}(X,Z)\) is small, we are dividing by a number close to zero

What do instrumental variables estimate?

IV Estimates Are Local

  • Remember when in week 1 we talked about 5 types of effects?
    1. The Average Treatment Effect (ATE)
    2. The Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT)
    3. The Average Treatment Effect on the Untreated (ATU)
    4. The Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE)
    5. The Intention to Treat (ITT)
  • IV estimates the Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE)

Complete Randomization

  • Consider a randomized experiment:
    1. Some people are assigned to the treatment group
    2. Some people are assigned to the control group
  • If participation in the treatment is mandatory:
    • ATE = \(E(Y_i|D_i=1)-E(Y_i|D_i=0)\)

Incomplete Randomization

  • If participation in the treatment is voluntary people can:
  • Take the treatment if they are assigned to it (compliers)
  • Not take the treatment if they are not assigned to it (compliers)
  • Take the treatment if they are not assigned to it (always-takers)
  • Not take the treatment if they are assigned to it (never-takers)
  • The LATE is the effect of the treatment on the compliers: people who are induced to take the treatment by the instrument

The LATE

  • LATE identifies the average causal effect on compliers
    • those who change their treatment status in line with the IV
  • LATE is not informative for treatment effect on Never-takers and Always-takers
    • IV is only informative for those who respond to the IV
  • In our example:
    • Always-takers: attend college irrespective of location
    • Never-takers: do not attend college irrespective of location
    • Compliers: attend college if close by, do not attend if far away

IV Implementation: Best Practices

  • Always report the first stage F-statistic
  • Always include the same controls in the first and second stage
  • IV(s) appear only in the first stage
  • Always have at least as many instruments as endogenous variables
  • Standard errors should be corrected for the fact that it is a two-step approach:
    • Always use the built-in commands in your statistical software

How to Choose an IV

  • General point: good IVs are very hard to find.
  • Search for natural experiments:
    • Policy changes
    • Natural disasters
    • Historical events
  • Use theory to find a variable that is correlated with the treatment but uncorrelated with the omitted variable
  • Best instruments often come from in-depth knowledge of the institutional details of some program or intervention
  • Incomplete randomization is a good source of IVs

How to Read an IV Study

  • What is the research question?
  • What is the identification problem?
  • What is exclusion restriction?
  • The authors should carefully discuss whether this assumption is plausible.
  • What does the first stage look like?
  • Is the first stage reasonable?
  • Do the authors test for weak instruments?
  • How does the IV differ from the OLS? Is the difference plausible?
  • Discussion of external validity
  • How large is the group of compliers relative to the group of always-takers?

The Bartik IV

  • The Bartik IV is a popular IV in regional and labor economics
  • Owes its name to Timothy Bartik (1991)1
  • Also called the shift-share IV
  • Mostly used to estimate the effect of trade, technology, and immigration on local labor markets
  • Idea: distribution of industries and migrant communities is endogenous to local labor market conditions
  • This distribution is exogenous to future nation wide shocks though

The Bartik IV: How to

Assume that we want to study the effect of migration on local wages:

  • \(Y_{it}= \alpha + \delta I_{it} + \rho X_{it} + \epsilon_{it}\)

    • \(Y_{it}\) is the wage of local workers in location \(i\) at time \(t\)
    • \(I_{it}\) is the share of migrants in the local labor market
    • \(X_{it}\) is a vector of local labor market characteristics

  • Problem: \(I_{it}\) is endogenous to local labor market conditions

  • Solution: construct an instrument that predicts the inflow of migrants to location \(i\) at time \(t\) on the basis of the national flow of migrants at \(t\) and local share of migrants in the past (\(t_0\))

The Bartik IV: How to

\[ B_{it}=\sum_{k=1}^{K}z_{ikt^0}m_{kt} \]

  • \(B_{it}\) is the predicted inflow of migrants to location \(i\) at time \(t\)
  • \(z_{ikt^0}\) is the share of migrants from location \(k\) at time \(t_0\)
  • \(m_{kt}\) is the national flow of migrants from location \(k\) at time \(t\)
  • The instrument is the predicted inflow of migrants to location \(i\) at time \(t\)
  • The instrument is a weighted average of the national flow of migrants from location \(k\) at time \(t\) where the weights are the share of migrants from location \(k\) at time \(t_0\)
  • The exclusion restriction is that the national flow of migrants from location \(k\) at time \(t\) is uncorrelated with local share of migrants at time \(t^0\)