This paper develops a specification test for the instrument validity conditions in the heterogeneous treatment effect model with a binary treatment and a discrete instrument. A necessary testable implication for the joint restriction of instrument exogeneity and instrument monotonicity is given by nonnegativity of point-identifiable complier’s outcome densities. Our specification test infers this testable implication using a Kolmogorov-Smirnov type test statistic. We provide a bootstrap algorithm to implement the proposed test and show its asymptotic validity. The proposed test procedure can apply to both discrete and continuous outcome cases.
Centre for microdata methods and practice