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arXiv2018

Program Evaluation and Causal Inference with High-Dimensional Data

In this paper, we provide efficient estimators and honest confidence bands for a variety of treatment effects including local average (LATE) and local quantile treatment effects (LQTE) in data-rich environments. We can handle very many control variables, endogenous receipt of treatment, heterogeneous treatment effects, and function-valued outcomes. Our framework covers the special case of exogenous receipt of treatment, either conditional on controls or unconditionally as in randomized control trials. In the latter case, our approach produces efficient estimators and honest bands for (functional) average treatment effects (ATE) and quantile treatment effects (QTE). To make informative inference possible, we assume that key reduced form predictive relationships are approximately sparse. This assumption allows the use of regularization and selection methods to estimate those relations, and we provide methods for post-regularization and post-selection inference that are uniformly valid (honest) across a wide-range of models. We show that a key ingredient enabling honest inference is the use of orthogonal or doubly robust moment conditions in estimating certain reduced form functional parameters. We illustrate the use of the proposed methods with an application to estimating the effect of 401(k) eligibility and participation on accumulated assets.

math.ST↗

arXiv2018

Individual and Time Effects in Nonlinear Panel Models with Large N, T

We derive fixed effects estimators of parameters and average partial effects in (possibly dynamic) nonlinear panel data models with individual and time effects. They cover logit, probit, ordered probit, Poisson and Tobit models that are important for many empirical applications in micro and macroeconomics. Our estimators use analytical and jackknife bias corrections to deal with the incidental parameter problem, and are asymptotically unbiased under asymptotic sequences where $N/T$ converges to a constant. We develop inference methods and show that they perform well in numerical examples.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2014

Nonparametric Identification in Panels using Quantiles

This paper considers identification and estimation of ceteris paribus effects of continuous regressors in nonseparable panel models with time homogeneity. The effects of interest are derivatives of the average and quantile structural functions of the model. We find that these derivatives are identified with two time periods for "stayers", i.e. for individuals with the same regressor values in two time periods. We show that the identification results carry over to models that allow location and scale time effects. We propose nonparametric series methods and a weighted bootstrap scheme to estimate and make inference on the identified effects. The bootstrap proposed allows uniform inference for function-valued parameters such as quantile effects uniformly over a region of quantile indices and/or regressor values. An empirical application to Engel curve estimation with panel data illustrates the results.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2016

Valid Post-Selection Inference in High-Dimensional Approximately Sparse Quantile Regression Models

This work proposes new inference methods for a regression coefficient of interest in a (heterogeneous) quantile regression model. We consider a high-dimensional model where the number of regressors potentially exceeds the sample size but a subset of them suffice to construct a reasonable approximation to the conditional quantile function. The proposed methods are (explicitly or implicitly) based on orthogonal score functions that protect against moderate model selection mistakes, which are often inevitable in the approximately sparse model considered in the present paper. We establish the uniform validity of the proposed confidence regions for the quantile regression coefficient. Importantly, these methods directly apply to more than one variable and a continuum of quantile indices. In addition, the performance of the proposed methods is illustrated through Monte-Carlo experiments and an empirical example, dealing with risk factors in childhood malnutrition.

math.ST↗

arXiv2018

Inference on causal and structural parameters using many moment inequalities

This paper considers the problem of testing many moment inequalities where the number of moment inequalities, denoted by $p$, is possibly much larger than the sample size $n$. There is a variety of economic applications where solving this problem allows to carry out inference on causal and structural parameters, a notable example is the market structure model of Ciliberto and Tamer (2009) where $p=2^{m+1}$ with $m$ being the number of firms that could possibly enter the market. We consider the test statistic given by the maximum of $p$ Studentized (or $t$-type) inequality-specific statistics, and analyze various ways to compute critical values for the test statistic. Specifically, we consider critical values based upon (i) the union bound combined with a moderate deviation inequality for self-normalized sums, (ii) the multiplier and empirical bootstraps, and (iii) two-step and three-step variants of (i) and (ii) by incorporating the selection of uninformative inequalities that are far from being binding and a novel selection of weakly informative inequalities that are potentially binding but do not provide first order information. We prove validity of these methods, showing that under mild conditions, they lead to tests with the error in size decreasing polynomially in $n$ while allowing for $p$ being much larger than $n$, indeed $p$ can be of order $\exp (n^{c})$ for some $c > 0$. Importantly, all these results hold without any restriction on the correlation structure between $p$ Studentized statistics, and also hold uniformly with respect to suitably large classes of underlying distributions. Moreover, in the online supplement, we show validity of a test based on the block multiplier bootstrap in the case of dependent data under some general mixing conditions.

math.ST↗

arXiv2015

Sieve Wald and QLR Inferences on Semi/nonparametric Conditional Moment Models

This paper considers inference on functionals of semi/nonparametric conditional moment restrictions with possibly nonsmooth generalized residuals, which include all of the (nonlinear) nonparametric instrumental variables (IV) as special cases. These models are often ill-posed and hence it is difficult to verify whether a (possibly nonlinear) functional is root-$n$ estimable or not. We provide computationally simple, unified inference procedures that are asymptotically valid regardless of whether a functional is root-$n$ estimable or not. We establish the following new useful results: (1) the asymptotic normality of a plug-in penalized sieve minimum distance (PSMD) estimator of a (possibly nonlinear) functional; (2) the consistency of simple sieve variance estimators for the plug-in PSMD estimator, and hence the asymptotic chi-square distribution of the sieve Wald statistic; (3) the asymptotic chi-square distribution of an optimally weighted sieve quasi likelihood ratio (QLR) test under the null hypothesis; (4) the asymptotic tight distribution of a non-optimally weighted sieve QLR statistic under the null; (5) the consistency of generalized residual bootstrap sieve Wald and QLR tests; (6) local power properties of sieve Wald and QLR tests and of their bootstrap versions; (7) asymptotic properties of sieve Wald and SQLR for functionals of increasing dimension. Simulation studies and an empirical illustration of a nonparametric quantile IV regression are presented.

math.ST↗

arXiv2015

Bootstrap Consistency for Quadratic Forms of Sample Averages with Increasing Dimension

This paper establishes consistency of the weighted bootstrap for quadratic forms $\left( n^{-1/2} \sum_{i=1}^{n} Z_{i,n} \right)^{T}\left( n^{-1/2} \sum_{i=1}^{n} Z_{i,n} \right)$ where $(Z_{i,n})_{i=1}^{n}$ are mean zero, independent $\mathbb{R}^{d}$-valued random variables and $d=d(n)$ is allowed to grow with the sample size $n$, slower than $n^{1/4}$. The proof relies on an adaptation of Lindeberg interpolation technique whereby we simplify the original problem to a Gaussian approximation problem. We apply our bootstrap results to model-specification testing problems when the number of moments is allowed to grow with the sample size.

math.ST↗

arXiv2014

Inference in High Dimensional Panel Models with an Application to Gun Control

We consider estimation and inference in panel data models with additive unobserved individual specific heterogeneity in a high dimensional setting. The setting allows the number of time varying regressors to be larger than the sample size. To make informative estimation and inference feasible, we require that the overall contribution of the time varying variables after eliminating the individual specific heterogeneity can be captured by a relatively small number of the available variables whose identities are unknown. This restriction allows the problem of estimation to proceed as a variable selection problem. Importantly, we treat the individual specific heterogeneity as fixed effects which allows this heterogeneity to be related to the observed time varying variables in an unspecified way and allows that this heterogeneity may be non-zero for all individuals. Within this framework, we provide procedures that give uniformly valid inference over a fixed subset of parameters in the canonical linear fixed effects model and over coefficients on a fixed vector of endogenous variables in panel data instrumental variables models with fixed effects and many instruments. An input to developing the properties of our proposed procedures is the use of a variant of the Lasso estimator that allows for a grouped data structure where data across groups are independent and dependence within groups is unrestricted. We provide formal conditions within this structure under which the proposed Lasso variant selects a sparse model with good approximation properties. We present simulation results in support of the theoretical developments and illustrate the use of the methods in an application aimed at estimating the effect of gun prevalence on crime rates.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2019

Nonlinear Factor Models for Network and Panel Data

Factor structures or interactive effects are convenient devices to incorporate latent variables in panel data models. We consider fixed effect estimation of nonlinear panel single-index models with factor structures in the unobservables, which include logit, probit, ordered probit and Poisson specifications. We establish that fixed effect estimators of model parameters and average partial effects have normal distributions when the two dimensions of the panel grow large, but might suffer of incidental parameter bias. We show how models with factor structures can also be applied to capture important features of network data such as reciprocity, degree heterogeneity, homophily in latent variables and clustering. We illustrate this applicability with an empirical example to the estimation of a gravity equation of international trade between countries using a Poisson model with multiple factors.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2015

Monge-Kantorovich Depth, Quantiles, Ranks, and Signs

We propose new concepts of statistical depth, multivariate quantiles, ranks and signs, based on canonical transportation maps between a distribution of interest on $R^d$ and a reference distribution on the $d$-dimensional unit ball. The new depth concept, called Monge-Kantorovich depth, specializes to halfspace depth in the case of spherical distributions, but, for more general distributions, differs from the latter in the ability for its contours to account for non convex features of the distribution of interest. We propose empirical counterparts to the population versions of those Monge-Kantorovich depth contours, quantiles, ranks and signs, and show their consistency by establishing a uniform convergence property for empirical transport maps, which is of independent interest.

math.ST↗

arXiv2017

The ABC of Simulation Estimation with Auxiliary Statistics

The frequentist method of simulated minimum distance (SMD) is widely used in economics to estimate complex models with an intractable likelihood. In other disciplines, a Bayesian approach known as Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) is far more popular. This paper connects these two seemingly related approaches to likelihood-free estimation by means of a Reverse Sampler that uses both optimization and importance weighting to target the posterior distribution. Its hybrid features enable us to analyze an ABC estimate from the perspective of SMD. We show that an ideal ABC estimate can be obtained as a weighted average of a sequence of SMD modes, each being the minimizer of the deviations between the data and the model. This contrasts with the SMD, which is the mode of the average deviations. Using stochastic expansions, we provide a general characterization of frequentist estimators and those based on Bayesian computations including Laplace-type estimators. Their differences are illustrated using analytical examples and a simulation study of the dynamic panel model.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2015

Post-Selection and Post-Regularization Inference in Linear Models with Many Controls and Instruments

In this note, we offer an approach to estimating causal/structural parameters in the presence of many instruments and controls based on methods for estimating sparse high-dimensional models. We use these high-dimensional methods to select both which instruments and which control variables to use. The approach we take extends BCCH2012, which covers selection of instruments for IV models with a small number of controls, and extends BCH2014, which covers selection of controls in models where the variable of interest is exogenous conditional on observables, to accommodate both a large number of controls and a large number of instruments. We illustrate the approach with a simulation and an empirical example. Technical supporting material is available in a supplementary online appendix.

stat.AP↗

arXiv2015

A lava attack on the recovery of sums of dense and sparse signals

Common high-dimensional methods for prediction rely on having either a sparse signal model, a model in which most parameters are zero and there are a small number of non-zero parameters that are large in magnitude, or a dense signal model, a model with no large parameters and very many small non-zero parameters. We consider a generalization of these two basic models, termed here a "sparse+dense" model, in which the signal is given by the sum of a sparse signal and a dense signal. Such a structure poses problems for traditional sparse estimators, such as the lasso, and for traditional dense estimation methods, such as ridge estimation. We propose a new penalization-based method, called lava, which is computationally efficient. With suitable choices of penalty parameters, the proposed method strictly dominates both lasso and ridge. We derive analytic expressions for the finite-sample risk function of the lava estimator in the Gaussian sequence model. We also provide an deviation bound for the prediction risk in the Gaussian regression model with fixed design. In both cases, we provide Stein's unbiased estimator for lava's prediction risk. A simulation example compares the performance of lava to lasso, ridge, and elastic net in a regression example using feasible, data-dependent penalty parameters and illustrates lava's improved performance relative to these benchmarks.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2016

Equilibrium in Misspecified Markov Decision Processes

We study Markov decision problems where the agent does not know the transition probability function mapping current states and actions to future states. The agent has a prior belief over a set of possible transition functions and updates beliefs using Bayes' rule. We allow her to be misspecified in the sense that the true transition probability function is not in the support of her prior. This problem is relevant in many economic settings but is usually not amenable to analysis by the researcher. We make the problem tractable by studying asymptotic behavior. We propose an equilibrium notion and provide conditions under which it characterizes steady state behavior. In the special case where the problem is static, equilibrium coincides with the single-agent version of Berk-Nash equilibrium (Esponda and Pouzo (2016)). We also discuss subtle issues that arise exclusively in dynamic settings due to the possibility of a negative value of experimentation.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2015

Alternative Asymptotics and the Partially Linear Model with Many Regressors

Non-standard distributional approximations have received considerable attention in recent years. They often provide more accurate approximations in small samples, and theoretical improvements in some cases. This paper shows that the seemingly unrelated "many instruments asymptotics" and "small bandwidth asymptotics" share a common structure, where the object determining the limiting distribution is a V-statistic with a remainder that is an asymptotically normal degenerate U-statistic. We illustrate how this general structure can be used to derive new results by obtaining a new asymptotic distribution of a series estimator of the partially linear model when the number of terms in the series approximation possibly grows as fast as the sample size, which we call "many terms asymptotics".

math.ST↗

arXiv2015

Exact P-values for Network Interference

We study the calculation of exact p-values for a large class of non-sharp null hypotheses about treatment effects in a setting with data from experiments involving members of a single connected network. The class includes null hypotheses that limit the effect of one unit's treatment status on another according to the distance between units; for example, the hypothesis might specify that the treatment status of immediate neighbors has no effect, or that units more than two edges away have no effect. We also consider hypotheses concerning the validity of sparsification of a network (for example based on the strength of ties) and hypotheses restricting heterogeneity in peer effects (so that, for example, only the number or fraction treated among neighboring units matters). Our general approach is to define an artificial experiment, such that the null hypothesis that was not sharp for the original experiment is sharp for the artificial experiment, and such that the randomization analysis for the artificial experiment is validated by the design of the original experiment.

math.ST↗

arXiv2017

Inference in Linear Regression Models with Many Covariates and Heteroskedasticity

The linear regression model is widely used in empirical work in Economics, Statistics, and many other disciplines. Researchers often include many covariates in their linear model specification in an attempt to control for confounders. We give inference methods that allow for many covariates and heteroskedasticity. Our results are obtained using high-dimensional approximations, where the number of included covariates are allowed to grow as fast as the sample size. We find that all of the usual versions of Eicker-White heteroskedasticity consistent standard error estimators for linear models are inconsistent under this asymptotics. We then propose a new heteroskedasticity consistent standard error formula that is fully automatic and robust to both (conditional)\ heteroskedasticity of unknown form and the inclusion of possibly many covariates. We apply our findings to three settings: parametric linear models with many covariates, linear panel models with many fixed effects, and semiparametric semi-linear models with many technical regressors. Simulation evidence consistent with our theoretical results is also provided. The proposed methods are also illustrated with an empirical application.

math.ST↗

arXiv2015

Nonparametric instrumental variable estimation under monotonicity

The ill-posedness of the inverse problem of recovering a regression function in a nonparametric instrumental variable model leads to estimators that may suffer from a very slow, logarithmic rate of convergence. In this paper, we show that restricting the problem to models with monotone regression functions and monotone instruments significantly weakens the ill-posedness of the problem. In stark contrast to the existing literature, the presence of a monotone instrument implies boundedness of our measure of ill-posedness when restricted to the space of monotone functions. Based on this result we derive a novel non-asymptotic error bound for the constrained estimator that imposes monotonicity of the regression function. For a given sample size, the bound is independent of the degree of ill-posedness as long as the regression function is not too steep. As an implication, the bound allows us to show that the constrained estimator converges at a fast, polynomial rate, independently of the degree of ill-posedness, in a large, but slowly shrinking neighborhood of constant functions. Our simulation study demonstrates significant finite-sample performance gains from imposing monotonicity even when the regression function is rather far from being a constant. We apply the constrained estimator to the problem of estimating gasoline demand functions from U.S. data.

stat.AP↗