published in: Economic Journal, 2004, 114 (494), C52-C83
Instrumental Variables (IV) methods identify internally valid causal effects for individuals
whose treatment status is manipulable by the instrument at hand. Inference for other
populations requires homogeneity assumptions. This paper outlines a theoretical framework
that nests causal homogeneity assumptions. These ideas are illustrated using sibling-sex
composition to estimate the effect of child-bearing on economic and marital outcomes. The
application is motivated by American welfare reform. The empirical results generally support
the notion of reduced labor supply and increased poverty as a consequence of childbearing,
but evidence on the impact of childbearing on marital stability and welfare use is more
tenuous.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.