IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/econom/v148y2009i2p186-200.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A nonparametric test for equality of distributions with mixed categorical and continuous data

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Qi
  • Maasoumi, Esfandiar
  • Racine, Jeffrey S.

Abstract

In this paper we consider the problem of testing for equality of two density or two conditional density functions defined over mixed discrete and continuous variables. We smooth both the discrete and continuous variables, with the smoothing parameters chosen via least-squares cross-validation. The test statistics are shown to have (asymptotic) normal null distributions. However, we advocate the use of bootstrap methods in order to better approximate their null distribution in finite-sample settings and we provide asymptotic validity of the proposed bootstrap method. Simulations show that the proposed tests have better power than both conventional frequency-based tests and smoothing tests based on ad hoc smoothing parameter selection, while a demonstrative empirical application to the joint distribution of earnings and educational attainment underscores the utility of the proposed approach in mixed data settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Qi & Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Racine, Jeffrey S., 2009. "A nonparametric test for equality of distributions with mixed categorical and continuous data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 148(2), pages 186-200, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:econom:v:148:y:2009:i:2:p:186-200
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-4076(08)00205-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Hall & Qi Li & Jeffrey S. Racine, 2007. "Nonparametric Estimation of Regression Functions in the Presence of Irrelevant Regressors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(4), pages 784-789, November.
    2. Nicholas Kiefer & Jeffrey Racine, 2009. "The smooth Colonel meets the Reverend," Journal of Nonparametric Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 521-533.
    3. Grund, B. & Hall, P., 1993. "On the Performance of Kernel Estimators for High-Dimensional, Sparse Binary Data," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 321-344, February.
    4. Racine, Jeffrey S. & Maasoumi, Esfandiar, 2007. "A versatile and robust metric entropy test of time-reversibility, and other hypotheses," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 138(2), pages 547-567, June.
    5. Li, Qi & Racine, Jeff, 2003. "Nonparametric estimation of distributions with categorical and continuous data," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 266-292, August.
    6. Fan, Yanqin & Li, Qi, 2000. "Consistent Model Specification Tests," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(6), pages 1016-1041, December.
    7. Gordon Anderson, 2001. "The Power And Size Of Nonparametric Tests For Common Distributional Characteristics," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 1-30.
    8. Russell Davidson & James MacKinnon, 2000. "Bootstrap tests: how many bootstraps?," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 55-68.
    9. Fan, Yanqin, 1998. "Goodness-Of-Fit Tests Based On Kernel Density Estimators With Fixed Smoothing Parameters," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(5), pages 604-621, October.
    10. Hall, Peter, 1984. "Central limit theorem for integrated square error of multivariate nonparametric density estimators," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 1-16, February.
    11. Peter Hall & Jeff Racine & Qi Li, 2004. "Cross-Validation and the Estimation of Conditional Probability Densities," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 99, pages 1015-1026, December.
    12. P. M. Robinson, 1991. "Consistent Nonparametric Entropy-Based Testing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(3), pages 437-453.
    13. Yongmiao Hong & Halbert White, 2005. "Asymptotic Distribution Theory for Nonparametric Entropy Measures of Serial Dependence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(3), pages 837-901, May.
    14. Anderson, N. H. & Hall, P. & Titterington, D. M., 1994. "Two-Sample Test Statistics for Measuring Discrepancies Between Two Multivariate Probability Density Functions Using Kernel-Based Density Estimates," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 41-54, July.
    15. Ahmad, Ibrahim A. & Li, Qi, 1997. "Testing independence by nonparametric kernel method," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 201-210, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qi Li & Jeffrey Scott Racine, 2006. "Nonparametric Econometrics: Theory and Practice," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 8355.
    2. Hsiao, Cheng & Li, Qi & Racine, Jeffrey S., 2007. "A consistent model specification test with mixed discrete and continuous data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 802-826, October.
    3. Luca Bagnato & Lucio De Capitani & Antonio Punzo, 2014. "Testing Serial Independence via Density-Based Measures of Divergence," Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 627-641, September.
    4. repec:cte:werepe:we1211 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. repec:wyi:journl:002074 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Taoufik Bouezmarni & Jeroen V.K. Rombouts & Abderrahim Taamouti, 2011. "Nonparametric Copula-Based Test for Conditional Independence with Applications to Granger Causality," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 275-287, October.
    7. Taoufik Bouezmarni & Abderrahim Taamouti, 2014. "Nonparametric tests for conditional independence using conditional distributions," Journal of Nonparametric Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(4), pages 697-719, December.
    8. Marcelo Fernandes & Breno Neri, 2010. "Nonparametric Entropy-Based Tests of Independence Between Stochastic Processes," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 276-306.
    9. Qi Li & Juan Lin & Jeffrey S. Racine, 2013. "Optimal Bandwidth Selection for Nonparametric Conditional Distribution and Quantile Functions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 57-65, January.
    10. Stefania D'Amico, 2004. "Density Estimation and Combination under Model Ambiguity," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 273, Society for Computational Economics.
    11. Wu, Edmond H.C. & Yu, Philip L.H. & Li, W.K., 2009. "A smoothed bootstrap test for independence based on mutual information," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 53(7), pages 2524-2536, May.
    12. Marcelo Fernandes & Eduardo Mendes & Olivier Scaillet, 2015. "Testing for symmetry and conditional symmetry using asymmetric kernels," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 67(4), pages 649-671, August.
    13. Phillip Heiler & Jana Mareckova, 2019. "Shrinkage for Categorical Regressors," Papers 1901.01898, arXiv.org.
    14. Dahl, Christian M. & Nielsen, Steen, 2001. "The Random Walk Of Stock Prices: Implications Of Recent Nonpara-Metric Tests," Working Papers 07-2001, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics.
    15. Yongmiao Hong & Xia Wang & Wenjie Zhang & Shouyang Wang, 2017. "An efficient integrated nonparametric entropy estimator of serial dependence," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6-9), pages 728-780, October.
    16. Cees Diks & Valentyn Panchenko, 2005. "Nonparametric Tests for Serial Independence Based on Quadratic Forms," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-076/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    17. L. Bagnato & L. De Capitani & A. Punzo, 2016. "The Kullback–Leibler autodependogram," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(14), pages 2574-2594, October.
    18. Efromovich, Sam, 2011. "Nonparametric estimation of the anisotropic probability density of mixed variables," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(3), pages 468-481, March.
    19. Stefania D'Amico, 2005. "Density selection and combination under model ambiguity: an application to stock returns," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-09, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    20. Simar, Leopold & Zelenyuk, Valentin, 2011. "To Smooth or Not to Smooth? The Case of Discrete Variables in Nonparametric Regressions," LIDAM Discussion Papers ISBA 2011042, Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences (ISBA).
    21. repec:jss:jstsof:27:i05 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Heiler, Phillip & Mareckova, Jana, 2021. "Shrinkage for categorical regressors," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 223(1), pages 161-189.
    23. Lu, Xun & White, Halbert, 2014. "Testing for separability in structural equations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 182(1), pages 14-26.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:econom:v:148:y:2009:i:2:p:186-200. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jeconom .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.