Weak instruments can produce biased IV estimators and hypothesis tests with large size distortions. But what, precisely, are weak instruments, and how does one detect them in practice? This paper proposes quantitative definitions of weak instruments based on the maximum IV estimator bias, or the...

Weak instruments can produce biased IV estimators and hypothesis tests with large size distortions. But what, precisely, are weak instruments, and how does one detect them in practice? This paper proposes quantitative definitions of weak instruments based on the maximum IV estimator bias, or the...

We develop a new specification test for the IV estimators adopting a particular second order approximation of Bekker (1994). The new specification test compares the difference of the forward (conventional) 2SLS estimator of the coefficient of the right hand side endogenous variable with the...