This paper applies some general concepts in decision theory to a simple instrumental variables model. There are two endogenous variables linked by a single structural equation; of the exogenous variables are excluded from this structural equation and provide the instrumental variables (IV). The reduced‐form distribution of the endogenous variables conditional on the exogenous variables corresponds to independent draws from a bivariate normal distribution with linear regression functions and a known covariance matrix. A canonical form of the model has parameter vector (ρ, φ, ω), where φis the parameter of interest and is normalized to be a point on the unit circle. The reduced‐form coefficients on the instrumental variables are split into a scalar parameter ρand a parameter vector ω, which is normalized to be a point on the (−1)‐dimensional unit sphere; ρmeasures the strength of the association between the endogenous variables and the instrumental variables, and ωis a measure of direction. A prior distribution is introduced for the IV model. The parameters φ, ρ, and ωare treated as independent random variables. The distribution for φis uniform on the unit circle; the distribution for ωis uniform on the unit sphere with dimension k‐1. These choices arise from the solution of a minimax problem. The prior for ρis left general. It turns out that given any positive value for ρ, the Bayes estimator of φdoes not depend on ρ; it equals the maximum‐likelihood estimator. This Bayes estimator has constant risk; because it minimizes average risk with respect to a proper prior, it is minimax.