This paper examines the ways in which structural systems can yield observed variables, other than the cause or treatment of interest, that can play an instrumental role in identifying and estimating causal effects. We focus speciÖcally on the ways in which structures determine exclusion...

This paper proposes a method for comparing and combining conditional quantile forecasts in an out-of-sample framework. We construct a Conditional Quantile Forecast Encompassing (CQFE) test as a Wald-type test of superior predictive ability. Rejection of CQFE provides a basis for combination of...

This paper proposes tests for comparing the accuracy of density forecasts. The evaluation makes use of scoring rules, which are loss functions defined over the density forecast and the realizations of the variable. In particular, a logarithmic scoring rule leads to the development of asymptotic...

We discuss instrumental variables (IV) estimation in the broader context of the generalized method of moments (GMM), and describe an extended IV estimation routine that provides GMM estimates as well as additional diagnostic tests. Stand-alone test procedures for heteroskedasticity,...

We extend our 2003 paper on instrumental variables (IV) and GMM estimation and testing and describe enhanced routines that address HAC standard errors, weak instruments, LIML and k-class estimation, tests for endogeneity and RESET and autocorrelation tests for IV estimates.

This paper develops a method for combining the power of a dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium model with the flexibility of a vector autoregressive time-series model to obtain a hybrid that can be taken directly to the data. It estimates this hybrid model via maximum likelihood and uses the...

A distribution theory is developed for least squares estimates of the threshold in threshold autoregressive (TAR) models. We find that if we let the threshold effect (the difference in slopes between the two regimes) get small as the sample size increases, then the asymptotic distribution of the...

This paper demonstrates the extensive scope of an alternative to standard instrumental variables methods, namely covariate-based methods, for identifying and estimating effects of interest in general structural systems. As we show, commonly used econometric methods, specifically parametric,...

The structural consumer demand methods used to estimate the parameters of collective household models are typically either very restrictive and easy to implement or very general and difficult to estimate. In this paper, we provide a middle ground. We adapt the very general framework of Browning,...

We study the interrelations between (conditional) independence and causal relations in settable systems. We provide definitions in terms of functional dependence for direct, indirect, and total causality as well as for (indirect) causality via and exclusive of a set of variables. We then provide...