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A specification test for the strength of instrumental variables

Zhenhong Huang, Chen Wang, Jianfeng Yao

arXiv 28 Feb 2023 · Econometrics

arXiv:2302.14396 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper develops a new specification test for the instrument weakness when the number of instruments $K_n$ is large with a magnitude comparable to the sample size $n$. The test relies on the fact that the difference between the two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimator and the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator asymptotically disappears when there are many weak instruments, but otherwise converges to a non-zero limit. We establish the limiting distribution of the difference within the above two specifications, and introduce a delete-$d$ Jackknife procedure to consistently estimate the asymptotic variance/covariance of the difference. Monte Carlo experiments demonstrate the good performance of the test procedure for both cases of single and multiple endogenous variables. Additionally, we re-examine the analysis of returns to education data in Angrist and Keueger (1991) using our proposed test. Both the simulation results and empirical analysis indicate the reliability of the test.

Citation extraction

35
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56
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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
1Mikusheva, A. and L. Sun (2022) Inference with many weak instruments0.87452100%
2Angrist, J. D. and A. B. Keueger (1991) Does compulsory school attendance affect schooling and earnings?0.84333100%
3Chao, J. C. and N. R. Swanson (2005) Consistent estimation with a large number of weak instruments0.7373367%
4Anatolyev, S. and N. Gospodinov (2011) Specification testing in models with many instruments0.73732100%
5Anderson, T., N. Kunitomo, and Y. Matsushita (2010) On the asymptotic optimality of the liml estimator with possibly many instruments0.64422100%
6Angrist, J. D. and A. B. Krueger (1995) Split-sample instrumental variables estimates of the return to schooling0.64422100%
7Bekker, P. A (1994) Alternative approximations to the distributions of instrumental variable estimators0.64422100%
8Bound, J., D. A. Jaeger, and R. M. Baker (1995) Problems with instrumental variables estimation when the correlation between the instruments and the endogenous explanatory vari…0.64422100%
9Chao, J. C. and R. Swanson (2006) Asymptotic normality of single-equation estimators for the case with a large number of weak instruments0.64422100%
10Lee, Y. and R. Okui (2012) Hahn–Hausman test as a specification test0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 35 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
1The First-stage F Test with Many Weak Instruments0.00011