Instrumental variables was invented, discovered, or dreamed up by Philip Wright, an early 20th century economist. Philip definitely has one of the more intriguing vitas of an economist I’ve ever seen. James Stock found it and posted it online. He published such luminaries as:
The Cannibal Converts: A Human Roast in Three Cuts, which according to what I could find online was an opera
a lot of poetry
he published Carl Sandburg’s very first book of poems, which is mind blowing
and 9 Top 5 publications (QJE, AER and JPE)
He also wrote some books, one of which was on tariffs and animal oils, and in the appendix, he lays a proof of sorts using directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) of all things of an early IV estimator. The Cowles Commission would around the same time also invent/discover/dream up the IV estimator, and it’s wild to think that IV was “in the air” like that. It wouldn’t be the first time scientists at the same time independently figure out the same thing, more or less. After all, wi…
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