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Across-Design Uncertainty in Short Pricing Panels: Evidence from Simulated Price Trajectories

Pedro Cadahia Delgado

arXiv 21 Aug 2026 · Machine Learning

arXiv:2608.21334 · PDF · Extracted main text

Abstract

Short observational pricing panels can contain many observations while offering only a small number of distinct price movements. This paper studies the inferential consequences of that distinction in a synthetic data-generating process calibrated to a sparse pricing regime. We separate uncertainty conditional on a realised price trajectory from variation in estimation error across alternative trajectories generated by the same pricing process. In the baseline simulations, the latter component accounts for 97.6% of the variance of estimation error for the gradient-boosted specification. Within-panel resampling procedures use the information of one realised trajectory and do not identify this across-design component. Three results organise the analysis. First, across-design dispersion is well described by the empirical relation sigma_hat approx 0.182 V^(-0.271), where V equals moves times magnitude squared. Second, adding regions sharing a common price path reduces outcome noise but does not create independent price trajectories; conversely, averaging across units with independent design-specific errors reduces dispersion at the standard square root rate. Third, a Paule-Mandel variance component estimated across independently priced units substantially increases empirical coverage in homogeneous simulations, from 0.469 to 0.931. The broader implication is a shift toward designing data-generating processes that create independent identifying variation rather than relying solely on fixed passive panels.

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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
1Cameron, A Colin and Gelbach, Jonah B and Miller, Douglas L (2011) Robust inference with multiway clustering0.64422100%
2Chiang, Harold D and Kato, Kengo and Ma, Yukun and Sasaki, Yuya (2022) Multiway cluster robust double/debiased machine learning0.64422100%
3Nakamura, Emi and Steinsson, Jón (2008) Five Facts about Prices: A Reevaluation of Menu Cost Models0.64422100%
4Paule, Robert C and Mandel, John (1982) Consensus values and weighting factors0.64422100%
5Abadie, Alberto and Athey, Susan and Imbens, Guido W. and Wooldridge… (2020) Sampling-Based versus Design-Based Uncertainty in Regression Analysis0.40511100%
6Andrews, Isaiah and Stock, James H. and Sun, Liyang (2019) Weak instruments in IV regression: Theory and practice0.40511100%
7Armstrong, Timothy B. and Kolesár, Michal (2020) Simple and Honest Confidence Intervals in Nonparametric Regression0.40511100%
8Bijmolt, Tammo HA and Van Heerde, Harald J and Pieters, Rik GM (2005) New empirical generalizations on the determinants of price elasticity0.40511100%
9Cameron, A Colin and Gelbach, Jonah B and Miller, Douglas L (2008) Bootstrap-based improvements for inference with clustered errors0.40511100%
10Chernozhukov, Victor and Chetverikov, Denis and Demirer, Mert and Du… (2018) Double/debiased machine learning for treatment and structural parameters0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 21 scored citations.