We provide new asymptotic theory for kernel density estimators, when these are applied to autoregressive processes exhibiting moderate deviations from a unit root. This fills a gap in the existing literature, which has to date considered only nearly integrated and stationary autoregressive processes. These results have applications to nonparametric predictive regression models. In particular, we show that the null rejection probability of a nonparametric t test is controlled uniformly in the degree of persistence of the regressor. This provides a rigorous justification for the validity of the usual nonparametric inferential procedures, even in cases where regressors may be highly persistent.

There are many environments in econometrics which require nonseparable modeling of a structural disturbance. In a nonseparable model with endogenous regressors, key conditions are validity of instrumental variables and monotonicity of the model in a scalar unobservable variable. Under these conditions the nonseparable model is equivalent to an instrumental quantile regression model. A failure of the key conditions, however, makes instrumental quantile regression potentially inconsistent. This article develops a methodology for testing the hypothesis whether the instrumental quantile regression model is correctly specified. Our test statistic is asymptotically normally distributed under correct specification and consistent against any alternative model. In addition, test statistics to justify the model simplification are established. Finite sample properties are examined in a Monte Carlo study and an empirical illustration is provided.

Hahn and Ridder (2013, Econometrica 81, 315–340) formulated influence functions of semiparametric three-step estimators where generated regressors are computed in the first step. This class of estimators covers several important examples for empirical analysis, such as production function estimators by Olley and Pakes (1996, Econometrica 64, 1263–1297) and propensity score matching estimators for treatment effects by Heckman, Ichimura, and Todd (1998, Review of Economic Studies 65, 261–294). The present article studies a nonparametric likelihood-based inference method for the parameters in such three-step estimation problems. In particular, we apply the general empirical likelihood theory of Bravo, Escanciano, and van Keilegom (2018, Annals of Statistics, forthcoming) to modify semiparametric moment functions to account for influences from plug-in estimates into the above important setup, and show that the resulting likelihood ratio statistic becomes asymptotically pivotal without undersmoothing in the first and second step nonparametric estimates.

This article develops inferential methods for a very general class of ill-posed models in econometrics encompassing the nonparametric instrumental variable regression, various functional regressions, and the density deconvolution. We focus on uniform confidence sets for the parameter of interest estimated with Tikhonov regularization, as in Darolles et al. (2011, Econometrica 79, 1541–1565). Since it is impossible to have inferential methods based on the central limit theorem, we develop two alternative approaches relying on the concentration inequality and bootstrap approximations. We show that expected diameters and coverage properties of resulting sets have uniform validity over a large class of models, that is, constructed confidence sets are honest. Monte Carlo experiments illustrate that introduced confidence sets have reasonable width and coverage properties. Using U.S. data, we provide uniform confidence sets for Engel curves for various commodities.

In multilevel modeling of clustered survival data, to account for the differences among different clusters, a commonly used approach is to introduce cluster effects, either random or fixed, into the model. Modeling with random effects may lead to difficulties in the implementation of the estimation procedure for the unknown parameters of interest because the numerical computation of multiple integrals may become unavoidable when the cluster effects are not scalars. On the other hand, if fixed effects are used, there is a danger of having estimators with large variances because there are too many nuisance parameters involved in the model. In this article, using the idea of the homogeneity pursuit, we propose a new multilevel modeling approach for clustered survival data. The proposed modeling approach does not have the potential computational problem as modeling with random effects, and it also involves far fewer unknown parameters than modeling with fixed effects. We also establish asymptotic properties to show the advantages of the proposed model and conduct intensive simulation studies to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. Finally, the proposed method is applied to analyze a dataset on the second-birth interval in Bangladesh. The most interesting finding is the impact of some important factors on the length of the second-birth interval variation over clusters and its homogeneous structure.

We consider truncated (or conditional) sum of squares estimation of a parametric model composed of a fractional time series and an additive generalized polynomial trend. Both the memory parameter, which characterizes the behavior of the stochastic component of the model, and the exponent parameter, which drives the shape of the deterministic component, are considered not only unknown real numbers but also lying in arbitrarily large (but finite) intervals. Thus, our model captures different forms of nonstationarity and noninvertibility. As in related settings, the proof of consistency (which is a prerequisite for proving asymptotic normality) is challenging due to nonuniform convergence of the objective function over a large admissible parameter space, but, in addition, our framework is substantially more involved due to the competition between stochastic and deterministic components. We establish consistency and asymptotic normality under quite general circumstances, finding that results differ crucially depending on the relative strength of the deterministic and stochastic components. Finite-sample properties are illustrated by means of a Monte Carlo experiment.