IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v40y2026i3p213-40.html

Leniency Designs: An Operator's Manual

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham
  • Peter Hull
  • Michal Kolesár

Abstract

We develop a step-by-step guide to leniency (a.k.a. judge or examiner instrument) designs, drawing on recent econometric literatures. The unbiased jackknife instrumental variables estimator (UJIVE) is purpose-built for leveraging exogenous leniency variation, avoiding subtle biases even in the presence of many decision-makers or controls. We show how UJIVE can also be used to assess key assumptions underlying leniency designs, including quasi-random assignment and average first-stage monotonicity, and to probe the external validity of treatment effect estimates. We further discuss statistical inference, arguing that non-clustered standard errors are often appropriate. A reanalysis of Farre-Mensa et al. (2020), using quasi-random examiner assignment to estimate the value of patents to startups, illustrates our checklist.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Peter Hull & Michal Kolesár, 2026. "Leniency Designs: An Operator's Manual," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 213-240, Summer.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:40:y:2026:i:3:p:213-40
    DOI: 10.1257/jep.20251480
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/jep.20251480
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25842
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25843
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/jep.20251480?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Jeremias Klaeui, 2026. "When to Broaden, When to Focus: Job Search and Market Tightness," CESifo Working Paper Series 12744, CESifo.
    3. Sloczynski, Tymon & Sun, Liyang & Uysal, S., 2026. "A Practical Guide to Instrumental Variables Methods with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 18684, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Tymon Stoczyński & Liang Sun & S. Derya Uysal & Derya Uysal, 2026. "A Practical Guide to Instrumental Variables Methods with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," CESifo Working Paper Series 12696, CESifo.
    5. Michal Koles'ar & Pengjin Min & Wenjie Wang & Yichong Zhang, 2026. "Cluster-Robust Inference for Quadratic Forms," Papers 2602.13537, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2026.
    6. Tymon S{l}oczy'nski & Liyang Sun & S. Derya Uysal, 2026. "A Practical Guide to Instrumental Variables Methods with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," Papers 2605.15115, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2026.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:40:y:2026:i:3:p:213-40. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.