← Search

The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 86 No. 1 2004

Using Matching, Instrumental Variables, and Control Functions to Estimate Economic Choice Models

James J. Heckman1; Salvador Navarro-Lozano

1 American Bar Foundation

Abstract

This paper investigates four topics. (1) It examines the different roles played by the propensity score (the probability of selection into treatment) in matching, instrumental variable, and control function methods. (2) It contrasts the roles of exclusion restrictions in matching and selection models. (3) It characterizes the sensitivity of matching to the choice of conditioning variables and demonstrates the greater robustness of control function methods to misspecification of the conditioning variables. (4) It demonstrates the problem of choosing the conditioning variables in matching and the failure of conventional model selection criteria when candidate conditioning variables are not exogenous in a sense defined in this paper.

DOI
10.1162/003465304323023660
Volume
86
Issue
1
Pages
30-57
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

Cite