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A Simple, Short, but Never-Empty Confidence Interval for Partially Identified Parameters

Jörg Stoye

arXiv 20 Oct 2020 · Econometrics · 1 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2010.10484 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper revisits the simple, but empirically salient, problem of inference on a real-valued parameter that is partially identified through upper and lower bounds with asymptotically normal estimators. A simple confidence interval is proposed and is shown to have the following properties: - It is never empty or awkwardly short, including when the sample analog of the identified set is empty. - It is valid for a well-defined pseudotrue parameter whether or not the model is well-specified. - It involves no tuning parameters and minimal computation. Computing the interval requires concentrating out one scalar nuisance parameter. In most cases, the practical result will be simple: To achieve 95% coverage, report the union of a simple 90% (!) confidence interval for the identified set and a standard 95% confidence interval for the pseudotrue parameter. For uncorrelated estimators -- notably if bounds are estimated from distinct subsamples -- and conventional coverage levels, validity of this simple procedure can be shown analytically. The case obtains in the motivating empirical application (de Quidt, Haushofer, and Roth, 2018), in which improvement over existing inference methods is demonstrated. More generally, simulations suggest that the novel confidence interval has excellent length and size control. This is partly because, in anticipation of never being empty, the interval can be made shorter than conventional ones in relevant regions of sample space.

Citation extraction

28
references
60
in-text mentions
28
distinct cited
2
self-citations
5,226
main-text words

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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
1Andrews and Kwon (2019) Inference in Moment Inequality Models That Is Robust to Spurious Precision under Model Misspecification1.000114100%
2Imbens and Manski (2004) Confidence Intervals for Partially Identified Parameters1.00063100%
3de Quidt, Haushofer, and Roth (2018) Measuring and Bounding Experimenter Demand1.00053100%
4Stoye (2009) More on Confidence Regions for Partially Identified Parameters self1.00053100%
5Andrews and Soares (2010) Inference for Parameters Defined by Moment Inequalities Using Generalized Moment Selection0.81142100%
6Molinari (2020) Microeconometrics with Partial Identification0.73732100%
7Romano, Shaikh, and Wolf (2014) A Practical Two-Step Method for Testing Moment Inequalities0.73732100%
8Andrews, Roth, and Pakes (2019) Inference for Linear Conditional Moment Inequalities0.51121100%
9Cox and Shi (2020) Simple Adaptive Size-Exact Testing for Full-Vector and Subvector Inference in Moment Inequality Models0.51121100%
10Andrews and Barwick (2012) Inference for Parameters Defined by Moment Inequalities: A Recommended Moment Selection Procedure0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 28 scored citations.

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6Bounds for Treatment Effects in the Presence of Anticipatory Behavior0.40511
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9Linear Regressions with Combined Data0.40511