Supercompliers
Abstract
In a binary-treatment instrumental variable framework, we define supercompliers as the subpopulation whose treatment take-up positively responds to eligibility and whose outcome positively responds to take-up. Supercompliers are the only subpopulation to benefit from treatment eligibility and, hence, are important for policy. We provide tools to characterize supercompliers under a set of jointly testable assumptions. Specifically, we require standard assumptions from the local average treatment effect literature plus an outcome monotonicity assumption. Estimation and inference can be conducted with instrumental variable regression. In two job-training experiments, we demonstrate our machinery's utility, particularly in incorporating social welfare weights into marginal-value-of-public-funds analysis.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2212.14105,
title = {Supercompliers},
author = {Matthew L. Comey and Amanda R. Eng and Pauline Leung and Zhuan Pei},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.14105},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
This version substantially revises v2. Pauline Leung has made significant contributions and is now a coauthor. We expand the non-binary outcome case, essential in the new connection to MVPF (Section 3). We replace the original empirical application with two job training experiments (Section 4), add new theoretical results in Remark 5, Appendix A.3, and A.7. References are updated