instrumental variable regression with single X and Z Flashcards
what are the three important threats to internal validity that instrumental variables can solve?
omitted variable bias from a variable that is correlated with X but is unobserved
simultaneous causality bias (X causes Y, Y causes X)
errors in variable bias (X is measured with error)
all three relate to E(u|X) not equal to 0
what is an instrumental variable?
an instrumental variable Z is correlated with X but uncorrelated with u
what is the purpose of instrumental variable regression?
it breaks X into two parts. a part that might be correlated with u and a part that is not. by isolating the part that is not correlated with u, it is possible to estimate B1
what is an endogenous variable?
it is one that is correlated with u
what is an exogenous variable??
it is one that is uncorrelated with u
for an instrumental variable to be valid what are the two conditions that need to be satisified?
1) instrumental relevance : corr(Z,X) not equal to zero
2) instrumental exogeneity : corr(Z,u)=0
what are the two stages of the least squares>
1) regress X_i on Z_i (including an intercept), obtain the predicted values of X_i^
2) regress Y_i on estimated X_i^ (including an intercept); the coefficient on X_i^ is the TSLS estimator B1_TSLS^ which is a consistent estimator of B1
what is the equation of B1 when the instrumental variable is healthy?
B1= Cov(Y_i, Z_i)/ Cov(X_i,Zi)
what are the steps for two stage least squares?
TSLS proceeds by first regressing X on Z to get estimator of X then regressing Y on estimator of X. the first stage isolates the part of the variation in X that is uncorrelated with u. if the instrument is valid then the large sample sampling distribution of the TSLS estimator is normal so inference proceeds as usual