I'm actually teaching this / writing a problem set on it now as a GSI right now, so the question is well timed! And available answers aren't quite right, so I'll offer one more. For pedagogical purposes, it's actually much better to think about three quantities:
ITT: Intent to Treat EffectITT: Intent to Treat Effect -- effect of treatment ASSIGNMENT on outcome (for everybody) LATE: Local Average Treatment EffectLATE: Local Average Treatment Effect -- effect of treatment no outcome FOR COMPLIERS ATE: Average Treatment EffectATE: Average Treatment Effect -- effect of treatment on outcome FOR EVERYBODY
We can't actually glean the type of person each of the folks in our data is, unfortunately. We live in one universe... but if we make a few assumptionsan assumption (monotonicity, exclusion restriction, valid randomization, no SUTVA violations on D or Y, relevancy of our assignment to uptake) we can use folks ACTUAL behavior to glean their "type." Once we've done that, we can make a few more assumptions (exclusion restriction, valid randomization, no SUTVA violations on D or Y, relevancy) to calculate the average effect of treatment FOR COMPLIERS. This is the LATE. It's called a "local" average treatment effect b/c it only estimatedoesn't calculate the treatment effect "globally" (i.e. for all) but instead calculates the effect of treatment "locally," for some"locally" -- i(i.e. for some, specifically, for compliers). It's also sometimes called the CATE or Complier Average Treatment Effect for that reason.
So there you have it! ITT -- effect of ASSIGNMENT on outcome. LATE -- effect of treatment on outcome FOR COMPLIERS. ATE -- effect of treatment on outcome for EVERYBODY.
- ITT -- effect of ASSIGNMENT on outcome.
- LATE -- effect of treatment on outcome FOR COMPLIERS.
- ATE -- effect of treatment on outcome for EVERYBODY.