Double Machine Learning with High-dimensional Interactive Fixed Effects

Abstract

Factor structures are central to empirical work in economics and finance, and are usually used to model time-varying unobserved heterogeneity through interactive fixed effects (IFE). Existing IFE estimators rest on low-dimensional and linear specifications in the covariates, assumptions which are increasingly restrictive in applications drawing on rich datasets with controls of unknown functional form. This paper develops a Double Machine Learning estimator for the high-dimensional partially linear panel model with interactive fixed effects (panel DML-IFE). The method combines projection-based defactorisation of the data, in the spirit of Common Correlated Effects (CCE), with a Neyman-orthogonal score function and cross-fitting procedure, and accommodates low-rank factor structures in outcomes and treatments alongside high-dimensional, potentially nonlinear covariate effects estimated by machine learning algorithms. Monte Carlo simulations show that panel DML-IFE outperforms conventional IFE estimator outside the correctly-specified linear case, with bias reduction driven primarily by the time and covariate dimensions. An empirical application to U.S. stock returns shows that several effects documented under linear specifications lose statistical significance once high-dimensional nonlinear confounding and the presence of IFE are jointly accounted for.