EconBase
← All papers

Simple Local Polynomial Density Estimators

Matias D. Cattaneo, Michael Jansson, Xinwei Ma

arXiv 28 Nov 2018 · Econometrics · publishedJournal of the American Statistical Association (2019) · 662 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:1811.11512 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper introduces an intuitive and easy-to-implement nonparametric density estimator based on local polynomial techniques. The estimator is fully boundary adaptive and automatic, but does not require pre-binning or any other transformation of the data. We study the main asymptotic properties of the estimator, and use these results to provide principled estimation, inference, and bandwidth selection methods. As a substantive application of our results, we develop a novel discontinuity in density testing procedure, an important problem in regression discontinuity designs and other program evaluation settings. An illustrative empirical application is given. Two companion Stata and R software packages are provided.

Citation extraction

1
references
5
in-text mentions
1
distinct cited
0
self-citations
19,133
main-text words

appendix boundary found by none_found · 100% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Fan, J., and Gijbels, I (1996) Local Polynomial Modelling and Its Applications1.00054100%

Showing the top 1 of 1 scored citations.

Cited by, within the corpus

arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1A unified test for regression discontinuity designs1.000215
2Kernel Choice Matters for Local Polynomial Density Estimators at Boundaries1.000216
3Testing Continuity of a Density via g-order statistics in the Regression Discontinuity Design1.00084
4Estimates of derivatives of (log) densities and related objects1.00074
5Local Regression Distribution EstimatorsSupplemental Appendix0.92843
6Manipulation Test for Multidimensional RDD0.860115
7The Power of Tests for Detecting $p$-Hacking0.73732
82009.075510.64422
9Global Testing in Multivariate Regression Discontinuity Designs0.64422
10Better Bunching, Nicer Notching0.51122