IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ifs/cemmap/41-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Finite sample bias corrected IV estimation for weak and many instruments

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew C. Harding

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Stanford University)

  • Jerry Hausman

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and MIT)

  • Christopher Palmer

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies)

Abstract

This paper considers the finite sample distribution of the 2SLS estimator and derives bounds on its exact bias in the presence of weak and/or many instruments. We then contrast the behavior of the exact bias expressions and the asymptotic expansions currently popular in the literature, including a consideration of the no-moment problem exhibited by many Nagar-type estimators. After deriving a finite sample unbiased k-class estimator, we introduce a double k-class estimator based on Nagar (1962) that dominates k-class estimators (including 2SLS), especially in the cases of weak and/or many instruments. We demonstrate these properties in Monte Carlo simulations showing that our preferred estimators outperforms Fuller (1977) estimators in terms of mean bias and MSE.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew C. Harding & Jerry Hausman & Christopher Palmer, 2015. "Finite sample bias corrected IV estimation for weak and many instruments," CeMMAP working papers CWP41/15, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:cemmap:41/15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/cemmap/wps/cwp411515.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Isaiah Andrews & Timothy B. Armstrong, 2017. "Unbiased instrumental variables estimation under known first‐stage sign," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), pages 479-503, July.
    2. Richardson, David H & Wu, De-Min, 1971. "A Note on the Comparison of Ordinary and Two-Stage Least Squares Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(6), pages 973-981, November.
    3. Karim Abadir, 1999. "An introduction to hypergeometric functions for economists," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 287-330.
    4. Srinivasan, T N, 1970. "Approximations to Finite Sample Moments of Estimators Whose Exact Sampling Distributions are Unknown," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 38(3), pages 533-541, May.
    5. Fuller, Wayne A, 1977. "Some Properties of a Modification of the Limited Information Estimator," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(4), pages 939-953, May.
    6. Chao, John & Swanson, Norman R., 2007. "Alternative approximations of the bias and MSE of the IV estimator under weak identification with an application to bias correction," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 137(2), pages 515-555, April.
    7. Phillips, P C B, 1980. "The Exact Distribution of Instrumental Variable Estimators in an Equation Containing n + 1 Endogenous Variables," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 861-878, May.
    8. Owen, A D, 1976. "A Proof That Both the Bias and the Mean Square Error of the Two-Stage Least Squares Estimator Are Monotonically Non-Increasing Functions of Sample Size," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(2), pages 409-411, March.
    9. Hansen, Christian & Hausman, Jerry & Newey, Whitney, 2008. "Estimation With Many Instrumental Variables," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 398-422.
    10. Hillier, Grant H & Kinal, Terrence W & Srivastava, V K, 1984. "On the Moments of Ordinary Least Squares and Instrumental Variables Estimators in a General Structural Equation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(1), pages 185-202, January.
    11. Ullah, Aman, 2004. "Finite Sample Econometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198774488.
    12. Hahn, Jinyong & Hausman, Jerry, 2002. "Notes on bias in estimators for simultaneous equation models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 237-241, April.
    13. D. S. Poskitt & C. L. Skeels, 2009. "Assessing the magnitude of the concentration parameter in a simultaneous equations model," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 12(1), pages 26-44, March.
    14. Dwivedi, T. D. & Srivastava, V. K., 1984. "Exact finite sample properties of double k-class estimators in simultaneous equations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 263-283, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Isaiah Andrews & Timothy B. Armstrong, 2017. "Unbiased instrumental variables estimation under known first‐stage sign," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(2), pages 479-503, July.

    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. Matthew C. Harding & Jerry Hausman & Christopher Palmer, 2015. "Finite sample bias corrected IV estimation for weak and many instruments," CeMMAP working papers 41/15, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    2. Emma M. Iglesias & Garry D. A. Phillips, 2012. "Almost Unbiased Estimation in Simultaneous Equation Models With Strong and/or Weak Instruments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4), pages 505-520, June.
    3. Yong Bao & Aman Ullah, 2021. "Analytical Finite Sample Econometrics: From A. L. Nagar to Now," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 19(1), pages 17-37, December.
    4. Christopher L. Skeels & Frank Windmeijer, 2018. "On the Stock–Yogo Tables," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-23, November.
    5. Chao, John & Swanson, Norman R., 2007. "Alternative approximations of the bias and MSE of the IV estimator under weak identification with an application to bias correction," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 137(2), pages 515-555, April.
    6. Yukitoshi Matsushita & Taisuke Otsu, 2020. "Second-order refinements for t-ratios with many instruments," STICERD - Econometrics Paper Series 612, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    7. Cheung Ip, Wai & Phillips, Garry D. A., 1998. "The non-monotonicity of the bias and mean squared error of the two stage least squares estimators of exogenous variable coefficients," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 303-310, September.
    8. Poskitt, D.S. & Skeels, C.L., 2007. "Approximating the distribution of the two-stage least squares estimator when the concentration parameter is small," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 217-236, July.
    9. Matsushita, Yukitoshi & Otsu, Taisuke, 2023. "Second-order refinements for t-ratios with many instruments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 232(2), pages 346-366.
    10. Phillips, Garry D.A. & Liu-Evans, Gareth, 2016. "Approximating and reducing bias in 2SLS estimation of dynamic simultaneous equation models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 734-762.
    11. Matsushita, Yukitoshi & Otsu, Taisuke, 2023. "Second-order refinements for t-ratios with many instruments," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111065, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. A. Belloni & D. Chen & V. Chernozhukov & C. Hansen, 2012. "Sparse Models and Methods for Optimal Instruments With an Application to Eminent Domain," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2369-2429, November.
    13. Hausman, Jerry & Lewis, Randall & Menzel, Konrad & Newey, Whitney, 2011. "Properties of the CUE estimator and a modification with moments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 165(1), pages 45-57.
    14. Michal Kolesár, 2013. "Estimation in an Instrumental Variables Model With Treatment Effect Heterogeneity," Working Papers 2013-2, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    15. Iglesias Emma M., 2011. "Constrained k-class Estimators in the Presence of Weak Instruments," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(4), pages 1-13, September.
    16. Matsushita, Yukitoshi & Otsu, Taisuke, 2024. "A jackknife Lagrange multiplier test with many weak instruments," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116392, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Michael Keane & Timothy Neal, 2021. "A Practical Guide to Weak Instruments," Discussion Papers 2021-05b, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    18. Keisuke Hirano & Jack R. Porter, 2015. "Location Properties of Point Estimators in Linear Instrumental Variables and Related Models," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(6-10), pages 720-733, December.
    19. Bun, Maurice J.G. & Windmeijer, Frank, 2011. "A comparison of bias approximations for the two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimator," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 113(1), pages 76-79, October.
    20. Fernanda Peixe & Alastair Hall & Kostas Kyriakoulis, 2006. "The Mean Squared Error of the Instrumental Variables Estimator When the Disturbance Has an Elliptical Distribution," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(1), pages 117-138.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Instrumental variables; weak and many instruments; finite sample; k-class estimators;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • C15 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Statistical Simulation Methods: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ifs:cemmap:41/15. 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: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmifsuk.html .

    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.