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Estimating Program Participation with Partial Validation

Augustine Denteh, Pierre E. Nguimkeu

arXiv 16 Dec 2025 · Econometrics

arXiv:2512.14616 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper considers the estimation of binary choice models when survey responses are possibly misclassified but one of the response category can be validated. Partial validation may occur when survey questions about participation include follow-up questions on that particular response category. In this case, we show that the initial two-sided misclassification problem can be transformed into a one-sided one, based on the partially validated responses. Using the updated responses naively for estimation does not solve or mitigate the misclassification bias, and we derive the ensuing asymptotic bias under general conditions. We then show how the partially validated responses can be used to construct a model for participation and propose consistent and asymptotically normal estimators that overcome misclassification error. Monte Carlo simulations are provided to demonstrate the finite sample performance of the proposed and selected existing methods. We provide an empirical illustration on the determinants of health insurance coverage in Ghana. We discuss implications for the design of survey questionnaires that allow researchers to overcome misclassification biases without recourse to relatively costly and often imperfect validation data.

Citation extraction

65
references
118
in-text mentions
65
distinct cited
3
self-citations
11,676
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
1Meyer, Bruce D and Mittag, Nikolas (2017) Misclassification in binary choice models1.000103100%
2Hausman, Jerry A and Abrevaya, Jason and Scott-Morton, Fiona M (1998) Misclassification of the dependent variable in a discrete-response setting1.00084100%
3Nguimkeu, Pierre and Denteh, Augustine and Tchernis, Rusty (2019) On the estimation of treatment effects with endogenous misreporting self1.00063100%
4Poirier, Dale J (1980) Partial Observability in Bivariate Probit Models1.00063100%
5Bollinger, Christopher R and David, Martin H (1997) Modeling discrete choice with response error: Food Stamp participation0.87462100%
6Meng, Chun-Lo and Schmidt, Peter (1985) On the cost of partial observability in the bivariate probit model0.87462100%
7Asare, Samuel and Gurmu, Shiferaw (2020) Health Insurance Provision and Women's Healthcare Utilization: Evidence from the National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana0.73732100%
8Courtemanche, Charles and Denteh, Augustine and Tchernis, Rusty (2019) Estimating the associations between SNAP and food insecurity, obesity, and food purchases with imperfect administrative measures… self0.73732100%
9Lee, Lung-Fei (1995) Semiparametric maximum likelihood estimation of polychotomous and sequential choice models0.6443267%
10Abrevaya, Jason and Hausman, Jerry A (1999) Semiparametric estimation with mismeasured dependent variables: an application to duration models for unemployment spells0.64422100%

Showing the top 10 of 65 scored citations.