System and method for estimating a long-term effect in the presence of unobserved confounding

Systems and methods for estimating a long-term effect in the presence of unobserved confounding are provided. For example, a long-term effect of a change in user interface of a media playback application may be estimated. An experimental dataset and an observational dataset may be compiled using data from a plurality of computing devices. The observational dataset may include unobserved confounding. Using the experimental dataset, a short-term effect may be determined. Using the short-term effect and samples from the observational dataset, an instrumental variable may be computed that may be used in instrumental variable regression to estimate the long-term effect.