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Introduction to Instrumental Variables (IV)

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    - [Instructor] The path from cause
    to effect is dark and dangerous.
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    But the weapons
    of Econometrics are strong.
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    Attack with fierce
    and flexible instrumental variables
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    when nature blesses you
    with fortuitous random assignment.
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    [gong rings]
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    Randomized trials are the surest
    path to ceteris parabus comparisons.
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    Alas, this powerful tool
    is often unavailable.
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    But sometimes, randomization
    happens by accident.
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    That's when we turn
    to instrumental variables --
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    IV for short.
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    - [Voice whispers] Instrumental
    variables.
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    - [Instructor] Today's lesson
    is the first of two on IV.
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    Our first IV lesson begins
    with a story of schools.
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    [school bell rings]
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    - [Josh] Charter schools
    are public schools
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    freed from daily district oversight
    and teacher union contracts.
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    The question of whether charters
    boost achievement
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    is one of the most important
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    in the history
    of American education reform.
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    - The most popular charter schools
    have more applicants than seats
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    so the luck of a lottery draw
    decides who's offered a seat.
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    A lot is at stake for the students
    vying for their chance,
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    and waiting for the lottery results
    brings up lots of emotions
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    as was captured
    in the award-winning documentary
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    "Waiting For Superman."
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    - [Mother] Don't cry. You're gonna
    make Mommy cry. Okay?
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    - Do charters really provide
    a better education?
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    Critics most definitely say no,
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    arguing that charters enroll
    better students to begin with,
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    smarter or more motivated,
    so differences in later outcomes
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    reflects selection bias.
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    - [Kamal] Wait, this one seems easy.
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    In a lottery, winners
    are chosen randomly,
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    so just compare winners and losers.
    - [Student] Obviously.
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    - On the right track, Kamal,
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    but charter lotteries
    don't force kids into
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    or out of a particular school.
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    They randomize offers
    of a charter seat.
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    Some kids get lucky.
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    Some kids don't.
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    If we just wanted to know
    the effect of charter school offers,
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    we could treat this
    as a randomized trial.
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    But we we're interested
    in the effects
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    of charter school attendance,
    not offers.
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    And not everyone
    who is offered, accepts.
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    IV turns the effect of being offered
    a charter seat into the effect
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    of actually attending
    a charter school.
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    - [Student] Cool.
    - Oh nice.
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    - Let's look at an example,
    a charter school from
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    the Knowledge Is Power
    Program, or KIPP for short.
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    This KIPP school is in Lynn,
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    a faded industrial town
    on the coast of Massachusetts.
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    The school has
    more applicants than seats
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    and therefore picks its students
    using a lottery.
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    From 2005 to 2008,
    371 fourth and fifth graders
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    put their names
    in the KIPP Lynn lottery,
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    253 students won a seat at KIPP,
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    118 students lost.
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    A year later, lottery winners had
    much higher math scores
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    than lottery losers.
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    But remember,
    we're not trying to figure out
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    whether winning a lottery
    makes you better at math.
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    We want to know if attending KIPP
    makes you better at math.
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    Of the 253 lottery winners,
    only 199 actually went to KIPP.
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    The others chose
    a traditional public school.
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    Similarly of the 118 lottery losers,
    a few actually ended up at KIPP.
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    They got an offer later.
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    So what was the effect on test scores
    of actually attending KIPP?
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    - [Kamal] Why can't we just
    measure their math scores?
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    - [Instructor] Great question.
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    Who would you compare them to?
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    - [Kamal] Those who didn't attend.
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    - [Instructor] Is attendance random?
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    - [Camilla] No.
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    - Selection bias.
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    - [Instructor] Correct.
    - [Otto] What?
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    - [Instructor] The KIPP offers
    are random so we can be confident
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    of ceteris parabus,
    but attendance is not random.
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    The choice to accept the offer
    might be due to characteristics
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    that are related
    to math performance --
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    say, for example,
    that dedicated parents
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    are more likely
    to accept the offer.
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    Their kids are also more likely
    to do better in math,
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    regardless of school.
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    - [Student] Right.
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    - [Instructor] IV converts
    the offer effect
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    into the effect of KIPP attendance,
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    adjusting for the fact
    that some winners go elsewhere
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    and some losers manage
    to attend KIPP anyway.
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    Essentially, IV takes
    an incomplete randomization
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    and makes the appropriate
    adjustments.
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    How? IV describes a chain reaction.
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    Why do offers affect achievement?
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    Probably because they affect
    charter attendance
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    and charter attendance
    improves math scores,
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    the first link in the chain
    called the first stage
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    is the effect of the lottery
    on charter attendance.
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    The second stage is the length
    between attending a charter
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    and an outcome variable,
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    in this case, math scores.
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    The instrumental variable,
    or instrument for short,
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    is the variable
    that initiates the chain reaction.
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    The effect of the instrument
    on the outcome is called
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    the reduced form.
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    This chain reaction can be
    represented mathematically.
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    We multiply the first stage,
    the effect of winning
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    on attendance, by the second stage,
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    the effect of attendance on scores.
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    And we get the reduced form,
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    the effect of winning
    the lottery on scores.
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    The reduced form and first stage
    are observable and easy to compute.
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    However, the effect of attendance
    on achievement
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    is not directly observed.
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    This is the causal effect
    we're trying to determine.
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    Given some important assumptions
    we'll discuss shortly,
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    we can find the effect
    of KIPP attendance
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    by dividing the reduced form
    by the first stage.
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    This will become more clear
    as we work through an example.
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    - [Student] Let's do this.
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    - A quick note on measurement.
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    We measure achievement
    using standard deviations,
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    often denoted
    by the Greek letter sigma (σ).
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    One σ is a huge move
    from around the bottom 15%
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    to the middle of most
    achievement distributions.
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    Even a ¼ or ½ σ difference is big.
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    - [Instructor] Now we're ready
    to plug some numbers
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    into the equation
    we introduced earlier.
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    First up, what's the effect
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    of winning the lottery
    on math scores?
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    KIPP applicants' math scores
    are a third of a standard deviation
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    below the state average in
    the year before they apply to KIPP.
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    But a year later, lottery winners
    score right at the state average
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    while the lottery losers
    are still well behind
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    with an average score
    around - 0.36 σ.
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    The effect of winning the lottery
    on scores is the difference
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    between the winners' scores
    and the losers' scores.
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    Take the winners'
    average math scores,
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    subtract the losers'
    average math scores,
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    and you will have 0.36 σ .
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    Next up: what's the effect
    of winning the lottery on attendance?
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    In other words,
    if you win the lottery,
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    how much more likely are you
    to attend KIPP than if you lose?
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    First, what percentage
    of lottery winners attend KIPP?
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    Divide the number of winners
    who attended KIPP
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    by the total number
    of lottery winners -- that's 78%.
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    To find the percentage
    of lottery losers who attended KIPP,
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    we divide the number of losers
    who attended KIPP
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    by the total number
    of lottery losers -- that's 4%.
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    Subtract 4 from 78, and we find
    that winning the lottery
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    makes you 74%
    more likely to attend KIPP.
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    Now we can find
    what we're really after,
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    the effect of attendance on scores,
    by dividing 0.36 by 0.74.
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    Attending KIPP raises math scores
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    by 0.48 standard deviations
    on average.
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    That's an awesome achievement gain,
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    equal to moving
    from about the bottom third
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    to the middle
    of the achievement distribution.
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    - [Student] Whoa, half a sig.
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    - [Instructor] These estimates
    are for kids opting in
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    to the KIPP lottery,
    whose enrollment status
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    is changed by winning.
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    That's not necessarily
    a random sample
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    of all children in Lynn.
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    So we can't assume
    we'd see the same effect
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    for other types of students.
    - [Student] Huh.
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    - But this effect
    on keen for KIPP kids
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    is likely to be a good indicator
    of the consequences
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    of adding additional charter seats.
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    - [Student] Cool.
    - [Student] Got it.
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    - IV eliminates selection bias,
    but like all of our tools,
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    the solution builds on a set
    of assumptions
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    not to be taken for granted.
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    First, there must be
    a substantial first stage --
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    that is the instrumental variable,
    winning or losing the lottery,
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    must really change the variable
    whose effect we're interested in --
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    here, KIPP attendance.
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    In this case, the first stage
    is not really in doubt.
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    Winning the lottery makes
    KIPP attendance much more likely.
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    Not all IV stories are like that.
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    Second, the instrument
    must be as good
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    as randomly assigned,
    meaning lottery winners and losers
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    have similar characteristics.
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    This is the independence assumption.
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    Of course, KIPP lottery wins
    really are randomly assigned.
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    Still, we should check for balance
    and confirm that winners and losers
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    have similar family backgrounds,
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    similar aptitudes and so on.
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    In essence, we're checking
    to ensure KIPP lotteries are fair
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    with no group of applicants
    suspiciously likely to win.
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    Finally, we require
    the instrument change outcomes
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    solely through
    the variable of interest,
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    in this case, attending KIPP.
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    This assumption is called
    the exclusion restriction.
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    - IV only works if you can satisfy
    these three assumptions.
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    - I don't understand
    the exclusion restriction.
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    How could winning the lottery
    affect math scores
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    other than by attending KIPP?
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    - [Student] Yeah.
    - [Instructor] Great question.
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    Suppose lottery winners
    are just thrilled to win,
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    and this happiness motivates them
    to study more and learn more math,
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    regardless of where
    they go to school.
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    This would violate
    the exclusion restriction
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    because the motivational effect
    of winning is a second channel
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    whereby lotteries
    might affect test scores.
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    While it's hard
    to rule this out entirely,
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    there's no evidence
    of any alternative channels
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    in the KIPP study.
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    - IV solves the problem
    of selection bias
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    in scenarios like the KIPP lottery
    where treatment offers are random
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    but some of those offered opt out.
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    This sort of intentional
    yet incomplete random assignment
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    is surprisingly common.
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    Even randomized clinical trials
    have this feature.
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    IV solves the problem
    of non-random take up
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    in lotteries or clinical research.
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    But lotteries are not the only
    source of compelling instruments.
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    Many causal questions can be
    addressed by naturally occurring
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    as good as randomly
    assigned variation.
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    Here's a causal question for you --
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    do women who have children early
    in their careers suffer
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    a substantial earnings penalty
    as a result?
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    After all, women earn less than men.
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    We could, of course, simply
    compare the earnings of women
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    with more and fewer children.
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    But such comparisons are fraught
    with selection bias.
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    If only we could randomly assign
    babies to different households.
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    Yeah, right,
    sounds pretty fanciful.
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    Our next IV story -- fantastic
    and not fanciful --
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    illustrates an amazing,
    naturally-occurring instrument
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    for family size.
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    ♪ [music] ♪
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    - [Instructor] You're on your way
    to mastering Econometrics.
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    Make sure this video sticks
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    by taking a few
    quick practice questions.
  • 12:43 - 12:46
    Or, if you're ready,
    click for the next video.
  • 12:47 - 12:50
    You can also check out
    MRU's website for more courses,
  • 12:50 - 12:52
    teacher resources, and more.
  • 12:52 - 12:54
    ♪ [music] ♪
Title:
Introduction to Instrumental Variables (IV)
Description:

more » « less
Video Language:
English
Team:
Marginal Revolution University
Project:
Mastering Econometrics
Duration:
12:57

English subtitles

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