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Direct and indirect treatment effects: causal chains and mediation analysis with instrumental variables

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  • Frölich, Markus

    () (University of Mannheim)

  • Huber, Martin

    () (University of St. Gallen)

Abstract

This paper discusses the nonparametric identification of causal direct and indirect effects of a binary treatment based on instrumental variables. We identify the indirect effect, which operates through a mediator (i.e. intermediate variable) that is situated on the causal path between the treatment and the outcome, as well as the unmediated direct effect of the treatment using distinct instruments for the endogenous treatment and the endogenous mediator. We examine different settings to obtain nonparametric identification of (natural) direct and indirect as well as controlled direct effects for continuous and discrete mediators and continuous and discrete instruments. We illustrate our approach in two applications: to disentangle the effects (i) of education on health, which may be mediated by income, and (ii) of the Job Corps training program, which may affect earnings indirectly via working longer hours and directly via higher wages per hour.

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  • Frölich, Markus & Huber, Martin, 2015. "Direct and indirect treatment effects: causal chains and mediation analysis with instrumental variables," Working Paper Series 2025:12, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2025_012
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    Cited by:

    1. Huber, Martin & Steinmayr, Andreas, 2017. "A Framework for Separating Individual Treatment Effects From Spillover, Interaction, and General Equilibrium Effects," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 21, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    2. Kantorowicz, Jarosław & Köppl–Turyna, Monika, 2019. "Disentangling the fiscal effects of local constitutions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 63-87.
    3. Fabian Kosse & Thomas Deckers & Pia Pinger & Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch & Armin Falk, 2020. "The Formation of Prosociality: Causal Evidence on the Role of Social Environment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(2), pages 434-467.
    4. Denise Hörner & Adrien Bouguen & Markus Frölich & Meike Wollni, 2019. "The Effects of Decentralized and Video-based Extension on the Adoption of Integrated Soil Fertility Management – Experimental Evidence from Ethiopia," NBER Working Papers 26052, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Prifti, Ervin & Daidone, Silvio & Davis, Benjamin, 2019. "Causal pathways of the productive impacts of cash transfers: Experimental evidence from Lesotho," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 258-268.
    6. Christian Dippel & Robert Gold & Stephan Heblich & Rodrigo Pinto, 2017. "Instrumental Variables and Causal Mechanisms: Unpacking the Effect of Trade on Workers and Voters," CESifo Working Paper Series 6816, CESifo.
    7. Martin Huber, 2016. "Disentangling policy effects into causal channels," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 259-259, May.
    8. Lochmann, Alexia & Rapoport, Hillel & Speciale, Biagio, 2019. "The effect of language training on immigrants’ economic integration: Empirical evidence from France," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 265-296.
    9. Strobl, Renate & Wunsch, Conny, 2018. "Identification of causal mechanisms based on between-subject double randomization designs," CEPR Discussion Papers 13028, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Tadao Hoshino & Takahide Yanagi, 2018. "Treatment Effect Models with Strategic Interaction in Treatment Decisions," Papers 1810.08350, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    11. Martin Huber & Yu‐Chin Hsu & Ying‐Ying Lee & Layal Lettry, 2020. "Direct and indirect effects of continuous treatments based on generalized propensity score weighting," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 814-840, November.
    12. Ohrnberger, Julius & Anselmi, Laura & Fichera, Eleonora & Sutton, Matt, 2020. "The effect of cash transfers on mental health: Opening the black box – A study from South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    13. Huber Martin & Wüthrich Kaspar, 2019. "Local Average and Quantile Treatment Effects Under Endogeneity: A Review," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-27, January.
    14. Martin Huber & Anna Solovyeva, 2020. "Direct and Indirect Effects under Sample Selection and Outcome Attrition," Econometrics, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 8(4), pages 1-25, December.
    15. Liu, Shilei & Xu, Jintao, 2019. "Livelihood mushroomed: Examining household level impacts of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) under new management regime in China's state forests," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 44-53.
    16. Martin Huber & Mark Schelker & Anthony Strittmatter, 2019. "Direct and Indirect Effects Based on Changes-in-Changes," CESifo Working Paper Series 7855, CESifo.
    17. Eva Deuchert & Martin Huber & Mark Schelker, 2019. "Direct and Indirect Effects Based on Difference-in-Differences With an Application to Political Preferences Following the Vietnam Draft Lottery," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 710-720, October.
    18. Arthur Lewbel, 2019. "The Identification Zoo: Meanings of Identification in Econometrics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(4), pages 835-903, December.
    19. Muhammad Shoukat Malik & Lubna Kanwal, 2018. "Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure on Financial Performance: Case Study of Listed Pharmaceutical Firms of Pakistan," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 69-78, June.
    20. Avdeenko, Alexandra & Frölich, Markus, 2020. "Research standards in empirical development economics: What’s well begun, is half done," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    21. Bijwaard, G.E.; & Jones, A.M.;, 2019. "Education and life-expectancy and how the relationship is mediated through changes in behaviour: a principal stratification approach for hazard rates," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/05, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Direct treatment effects; mediation analysis;

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General

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