Identification and Estimation of Causal Treatment Effects: Instrumental Variable Approaches

This thesis studies some methodological issues relating to the assessment of the causal impact of some economic variables on a qualitative feature of the economy. It also sheds new light on policy evaluation studies in the presence of network interference. It identifies the mechanism through which the effects of a policy could propagate and affect many others’ socioeconomic behaviour, which is important to provide meaningful policy advice for effective policy targeting.