Individual and time effects in nonlinear panel models with large N , T

Fixed effects estimators of nonlinear panel data models can be severely biased because of the incidental parameter problem. We develop analytical and jackknife bias corrections for nonlinear models with both individual and time effects. Under asymptotic sequences where the time-dimension (T) grows with the cross-sectional dimension (N), the time effects introduce additional incidental parameter bias. As the existing bias corrections apply to models with only individual effects, we derive the appropriate corrections for the case when both effects are present. The basis for the corrections are general asymptotic expansions of fixed effects estimators with incidental parameters in multiple dimensions. We apply the expansions to conditional maximum likelihood estimators with concave objective functions in parameters for panel models with additively separable individual and time effects. These estimators cover fixed effects estimators of the most popular limited dependent variable models such as logit, probit, ordered probit, Tobit and Poisson models. Our analysis therefore extends the use of large-T bias adjustments to an important class of models.We also analyze the properties of fixed effects estimators of functions of the data, parameters and individual and time effects including average partial effects. Here, we uncover that the incidental parameter bias is asymptotically of second order, because the rate of the convergence of the fixed effects estimators is slower for average partial effects than for model parameters. The bias corrections are still effective to improve finite-sample properties.View the supplementary document for this paper here.