IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/usg/econwp/201145.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Testing instrument validity in sample selection models

Author

Listed:
  • Huber, Martin
  • Mellace, Giovanni

Abstract

This paper proposes tests for instrument validity in sample selection models with non-randomly censored outcomes. Such models commonly invoke an exclusion restriction (i.e., the availability of an instrument affecting selection, but not the outcome) and additive separability of the errors in the selection process. These assumptions allow us to both point identify and bound the outcome distribution of the subpopulation of the always selected, whose outcomes are observed irrespective of the instrument value. As the point must lie within its bounds, this yields two testable inequality constraints. We apply our tests to two instruments conventionally exploited for the estimation of female wage equations: non-wife/husband's income and the number of (young) children. Considering eight empirical applications, our results suggest that the former is not a valid instrument, while the validity of the latter is not refuted on statistical grounds.

Suggested Citation

  • Huber, Martin & Mellace, Giovanni, 2011. "Testing instrument validity in sample selection models," Economics Working Paper Series 1145, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:usg:econwp:2011:45
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ux-tauri.unisg.ch/RePEc/usg/econwp/EWP-1145.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James J. Heckman, 1976. "The Common Structure of Statistical Models of Truncation, Sample Selection and Limited Dependent Variables and a Simple Estimator for Such Models," NBER Chapters, in: Annals of Economic and Social Measurement, Volume 5, number 4, pages 475-492, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Richard Blundell & Amanda Gosling & Hidehiko Ichimura & Costas Meghir, 2007. "Changes in the Distribution of Male and Female Wages Accounting for Employment Composition Using Bounds," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 323-363, March.
    3. Philip Oreopoulos & Daniel Lang & Joshua Angrist, 2009. "Incentives and Services for College Achievement: Evidence from a Randomized Trial," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 136-163, January.
    4. Horowitz, Joel L & Manski, Charles F, 1995. "Identification and Robustness with Contaminated and Corrupted Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 63(2), pages 281-302, March.
    5. Gronau, Reuben, 1974. "Wage Comparisons-A Selectivity Bias," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1119-1143, Nov.-Dec..
    6. Imbens, Guido W & Angrist, Joshua D, 1994. "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(2), pages 467-475, March.
    7. Sheng‐Kai Chang, 2011. "Simulation estimation of two‐tiered dynamic panel Tobit models with an application to the labor supply of married women," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 854-871, August.
    8. Le-Yu Chen & Jerzy Szroeter, 2009. "Hypothesis testing of multiple inequalities: the method of constraint chaining," CeMMAP working papers CWP13/09, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    9. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    10. Donald W. K. Andrews & Panle Jia Barwick, 2012. "Inference for Parameters Defined by Moment Inequalities: A Recommended Moment Selection Procedure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2805-2826, November.
    11. Martin Huber & Giovanni Mellace, 2015. "Testing Instrument Validity for LATE Identification Based on Inequality Moment Constraints," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 398-411, May.
    12. Fleisher, Belton M & Rhodes, George F, Jr, 1979. "Fertility, Women's Wage Rates, and Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 14-24, March.
    13. Barnett,William A. & Powell,James & Tauchen,George E. (ed.), 1991. "Nonparametric and Semiparametric Methods in Econometrics and Statistics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521424318.
    14. Mroz, Thomas A, 1987. "The Sensitivity of an Empirical Model of Married Women's Hours of Work to Economic and Statistical Assumptions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(4), pages 765-799, July.
    15. Leslie G. Godfrey, 2005. "Controlling the Overall Significance Level of a Battery of Least Squares Diagnostic Tests," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 67(2), pages 263-279, April.
    16. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    17. Robert A. Nakosteen & Olle Westerlund & Michael A. Zimmer, 2004. "Marital Matching and Earnings: Evidence from the Unmarried Population in Sweden," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(4).
    18. Constantine E. Frangakis & Donald B. Rubin, 2002. "Principal Stratification in Causal Inference," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 21-29, March.
    19. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1, March.
    20. Hansen, Peter Reinhard, 2005. "A Test for Superior Predictive Ability," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 365-380, October.
    21. Whitney K. Newey, 2009. "Two-step series estimation of sample selection models," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 12(s1), pages 217-229, January.
    22. Gallant, A Ronald & Nychka, Douglas W, 1987. "Semi-nonparametric Maximum Likelihood Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 363-390, March.
    23. Joshua Angrist & Eric Bettinger & Michael Kremer, 2006. "Long-Term Educational Consequences of Secondary School Vouchers: Evidence from Administrative Records in Colombia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 847-862, June.
    24. Mitali Das & Whitney K. Newey & Francis Vella, 2003. "Nonparametric Estimation of Sample Selection Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(1), pages 33-58.
    25. Christopher J. Bennett, 2009. "Consistent and Asymptotically Unbiased MinP Tests of Multiple Inequality Moment Restrictions," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0908, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    26. Barnett,William A. & Powell,James & Tauchen,George E. (ed.), 1991. "Nonparametric and Semiparametric Methods in Econometrics and Statistics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521370905.
    27. Maria Fraga O. Martins, 2001. "Parametric and semiparametric estimation of sample selection models: an empirical application to the female labour force in Portugal," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 23-39.
    28. Donald W. K. Andrews & Gustavo Soares, 2010. "Inference for Parameters Defined by Moment Inequalities Using Generalized Moment Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(1), pages 119-157, January.
    29. Peter Z. Schochet & John Burghardt & Steven Glazerman, 2001. "National Job Corps Study: The Impacts of Job Corps on Participants' Employment and Related Outcomes," Mathematica Policy Research Reports db6c4204b8e1408bb0c6289ec, Mathematica Policy Research.
    30. Ahn, Hyungtaik & Powell, James L., 1993. "Semiparametric estimation of censored selection models with a nonparametric selection mechanism," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1-2), pages 3-29, July.
    31. Heckman, James J, 1974. "Shadow Prices, Market Wages, and Labor Supply," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 42(4), pages 679-694, July.
    32. Marcia M. A. Schafgans, 1998. "Ethnic wage differences in Malaysia: parametric and semiparametric estimation of the Chinese-Malay wage gap," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(5), pages 481-504.
    33. Zabel, Jeffrey E, 1993. "The Relationship between Hours of Work and Labor Force Participation in Four Models of Labor Supply Behavior," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(2), pages 387-416, April.
    34. Guido W. Imbens & Donald B. Rubin, 1997. "Estimating Outcome Distributions for Compliers in Instrumental Variables Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 555-574.
    35. repec:mpr:mprres:2951 is not listed on IDEAS
    36. Powell, James L., 1987. "Semiparametric Estimation Of Bivariate Latent Variable Models," SSRI Workshop Series 292689, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Social Systems Research Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Huber & Giovanni Mellace, 2014. "Testing exclusion restrictions and additive separability in sample selection models," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 75-92, August.
    2. Huber, Martin & Melly, Blaise, 2011. "Quantile Regression in the Presence of Sample Selection," Economics Working Paper Series 1109, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    3. Martin Huber & Giovanni Mellace, 2015. "Sharp Bounds on Causal Effects under Sample Selection," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 77(1), pages 129-151, February.
    4. Qi Li & Jeffrey Scott Racine, 2006. "Nonparametric Econometrics: Theory and Practice," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 8355.
    5. Richard Blundell & Amanda Gosling & Hidehiko Ichimura & Costas Meghir, 2007. "Changes in the Distribution of Male and Female Wages Accounting for Employment Composition Using Bounds," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 323-363, March.
    6. Lewbel, Arthur, 2007. "Endogenous selection or treatment model estimation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 777-806, December.
    7. Martin Huber & Giovanni Mellace, 2015. "Testing Instrument Validity for LATE Identification Based on Inequality Moment Constraints," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 398-411, May.
    8. Martin Huber & Blaise Melly, 2012. "A test of the conditional independence assumption in sample selection models," Working Papers 2012-11, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    9. Martin Huber, 2014. "Treatment Evaluation in the Presence of Sample Selection," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(8), pages 869-905, November.
    10. Claudia PIGINI, 2012. "Of Butterflies and Caterpillars: Bivariate Normality in the Sample Selection Model," Working Papers 377, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    11. van Hasselt, Martijn, 2011. "Bayesian inference in a sample selection model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 165(2), pages 221-232.
    12. Giovanni Mellace & Roberto Rocci, 2011. "Principal Stratification in sample selection problems with non normal error terms," CEIS Research Paper 194, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 02 May 2011.
    13. Pigini Claudia, 2015. "Bivariate Non-Normality in the Sample Selection Model," Journal of Econometric Methods, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-22, January.
    14. Katrin Hussinger, 2008. "R&D and subsidies at the firm level: an application of parametric and semiparametric two-step selection models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(6), pages 729-747.
    15. Black, Dan A. & Joo, Joonhwi & LaLonde, Robert & Smith, Jeffrey A. & Taylor, Evan J., 2022. "Simple Tests for Selection: Learning More from Instrumental Variables," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    16. D’Haultfœuille, Xavier & Maurel, Arnaud & Zhang, Yichong, 2018. "Extremal quantile regressions for selection models and the black–white wage gap," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 203(1), pages 129-142.
    17. Martin Huber & Anna Solovyeva, 2020. "Direct and Indirect Effects under Sample Selection and Outcome Attrition," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-25, December.
    18. Jörg Schwiebert, 2015. "Estimation and interpretation of a Heckman selection model with endogenous covariates," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 675-703, September.
    19. Liu, Ruixuan & Yu, Zhengfei, 2022. "Sample selection models with monotone control functions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 226(2), pages 321-342.
    20. James J. Heckman, 2005. "Micro Data, Heterogeneity and the Evaluation of Public Policy Part 2," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 49(1), pages 16-44, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sample selection; instrument; test;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C12 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Hypothesis Testing: General
    • C15 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Statistical Simulation Methods: General
    • C24 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models; Threshold Regression Models
    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:usg:econwp:2011:45. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vwasgch.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.