The core instrumental variable assumptions are:
For a local average effect one additionally uses instrumental-variable monotonicity. Because the valid instrument supplies variation in education independent of the confounders and has no direct route to the outcome, the instrument-outcome association can be attributed to the education changed by the instrument without measuring every confounder.
Let indicate a recent birthday event, indicate a social gathering, and denote subsequent household COVID-19 infection. The standard instrumental variable conditions are:
The usual consistency in causal inference, well-defined exposure, and absence of relevant interference in causal inference are also needed to interpret the result causally.
Instrumental-variable monotonicity is
It excludes defiers who would quit without the incentive but continue smoking when offered it. The possible principal strata are then never-takers , compliers , and always-takers .
By random assignment, consistency, and exclusion,
The second identity follows by checking the two possible binary exposure values. Under monotonicity, is the indicator of being a complier. Therefore the numerator is
while
Their ratio is the complier average treatment effect, also called the local average treatment effect.