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Avoiding Invalid Instruments and Coping with Weak Instruments

Murray, Michael P·2006·Journal of Economic Perspectives

Abstract

Archimedes said, “Give me the place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the Earth.” Economists have their own powerful lever: the instrumental variable estimator. The instrumental variable estimator can avoid the bias that ordinary least squares suffers when an explanatory variable in a regression is correlated with the regression's disturbance term. But, like Archimedes' lever, instrumental variable estimation requires both a valid instrument on which to stand and an instrument that isn't too short (or “too weak”). This paper briefly reviews instrumental variable estimation, discusses classic strategies for avoiding invalid instruments (instruments themselves correlated with the regression's disturbances), and describes recently developed strategies for coping with weak instruments (instruments only weakly correlated with the offending explanator).

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Metadata

Authors
Murray, M. P.
Venue
Journal of Economic Perspectives
Published
2006-08-01
Volume
20
Issue
4
Pages
111-132
ISSN
0895-3309 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2109437759
Cited by
1,092
References
4
FWCI
36.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Avoiding Invalid Instruments and Coping with Weak Instruments. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1257/jep.20.4.111
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Murray, M. P. (2006). Avoiding Invalid Instruments and Coping with Weak Instruments. Journal of Economic Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.20.4.111

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