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Short and Simple Confidence Intervals when the Directions of Some Effects are Known

Philipp Ketz, Adam McCloskey

arXiv 16 Sep 2021 · Econometrics · publishedThe Review of Economics and Statistics (2023) · 2 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2109.08222 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

We provide adaptive confidence intervals on a parameter of interest in the presence of nuisance parameters when some of the nuisance parameters have known signs. The confidence intervals are adaptive in the sense that they tend to be short at and near the points where the nuisance parameters are equal to zero. We focus our results primarily on the practical problem of inference on a coefficient of interest in the linear regression model when it is unclear whether or not it is necessary to include a subset of control variables whose partial effects on the dependent variable have known directions (signs). Our confidence intervals are trivial to compute and can provide significant length reductions relative to standard confidence intervals in cases for which the control variables do not have large effects. At the same time, they entail minimal length increases at any parameter values. We prove that our confidence intervals are asymptotically valid uniformly over the parameter space and illustrate their length properties in an empirical application to a factorial design field experiment and a Monte Carlo study calibrated to the empirical application.

Citation extraction

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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
1McCloskey, A (2017) Bonferroni-based size-correction for nonstandard testing problems self0.9285380%
2Kwon, K. and Kwon, S (2020) Adaptive inference in multivariate nonparametric regression models under monotonicity0.87452100%
3Kwon, K. and Kwon, S (2020) Inference in regression discontinuity designs under monotonicity0.87452100%
4Ketz, P (2018) Subvector inference when the true parameter vector may be near or at the boundary self0.87452100%
5Cai, T. T. and Low, M. G (2004) An adaptation theory for nonparametric confidence intervals0.81142100%
6Armstrong, T. B. and Kolesár, M (2018) Optimal inference in a class of regression models0.7374350%
7Muralidharan, K., Romero, M., and Wüthrich, K (2020) Factorial designs, model selection, and (incorrect) inference in randomized experiments0.73732100%
8Berry, S., Levinsohn, J., and Pakes, A (1995) Automobile Prices in Market Equilibrium0.64422100%
9Blattman, C., Jamison, J. C., and Sheridan, M (2017) Reducing crime and violence: Experimental evidence from cognitive behavioral therapy in Liberia0.64422100%
10Armstrong, T. B., Kolesár, M., and Kwon, S (2020) Bias-aware inference in regularized regression models0.58531100%

Showing the top 10 of 27 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
1Numerical Analysis of Test Optimality0.81142
2A Simple and Adaptive Confidence Interval when Nuisance Parameters Satisfy an Inequality0.73732
3Weak Identification with Bounds in a Class of Minimum Distance Models0.40511
4A Generalized Argmax Theorem with Applications0.40511
5On the Lower Confidence Band for the Optimal Welfare in Policy Learning0.40511