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IZA Discussion Paper No. 18573
April 2026
Testing IV Validity and LATE Interpretation Using Flexible Covariate Specifications
Anna Krumme, Matthias Westphal

Building on the testable implications for IV validity underlying local average treatment effect (LATE) estimation, we (i) propose a simple testing procedure that may accommodate high-dimensional covariates and (ii) demonstrate that it can also detect biases arising from misspecified IV regression models. While recent research has highlighted the importance of a correct covariate specification, existing IV validity tests are not designed to capture this source of bias. Simulation studies strongly suggest that the test performs well at detecting violations of conditional independence, violations of the exclusion restriction, and biases arising from covariate misspecification.

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Mark Fallak
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World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
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+352 585-855-501
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Christina Gathmann
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The IZA@LISER Network is a global community of scholars dedicated to excellence in labor economics and related fields, now coordinated at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) following its transition from Bonn.

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