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Robust Empirical Bayes Confidence Intervals

Timothy B. Armstrong, Michal Kolesár, Mikkel Plagborg-Møller

arXiv 7 Apr 2020 · Econometrics · publishedEconometrica (2022) · 15 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2004.03448 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

We construct robust empirical Bayes confidence intervals (EBCIs) in a normal means problem. The intervals are centered at the usual linear empirical Bayes estimator, but use a critical value accounting for shrinkage. Parametric EBCIs that assume a normal distribution for the means (Morris, 1983b) may substantially undercover when this assumption is violated. In contrast, our EBCIs control coverage regardless of the means distribution, while remaining close in length to the parametric EBCIs when the means are indeed Gaussian. If the means are treated as fixed, our EBCIs have an average coverage guarantee: the coverage probability is at least $1 - \alpha$ on average across the $n$ EBCIs for each of the means. Our empirical application considers the effects of U.S. neighborhoods on intergenerational mobility.

Citation extraction

43
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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
1Chetty, R. and Hendren, N (2018) The impacts of neighborhoods on intergenerational mobility II: County-level estimates1.000123100%
2Morris, C. N (1983) Parametric empirical Bayes inference: Theory and applications0.96510790%
3Morris, C. N (1983) Parametric empirical Bayes confidence intervals0.8434375%
4Carlin, B. P. and Louis, T. A (2000) Bayes and Empirical Bayes Methods for Data Analysis0.84333100%
5Andrews, I., McCloskey, A., and Kitagawa, T (2021) Inference on winners0.73732100%
6Efron, B (2019) Bayes, oracle Bayes and empirical Bayes0.73732100%
7Cai, T. T., Low, M., and Ma, Z (2014) Adaptive confidence bands for nonparametric regression functions0.64422100%
8Hung, K. and Fithian, W (2019) Rank verification for exponential families0.64422100%
9James, W. and Stein, C. M (1961) Estimation with quadratic loss0.64422100%
10Wasserman, L (2006) All of Nonparametric Statistics0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 43 scored citations.

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4Invidious Comparisons: Ranking and Selection as Compound Decisions0.40511
5Empirical Bayes When Estimation Precision Predicts Parameters0.40511
6Double Robustness of Local Projections and Some Unpleasant VARithmetic0.40511
7(Visualizing) Plausible Treatment Effect Paths0.40511
82cm Optimal Estimation of Two-Way Effects under Limited Mobility0.40511
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