We consider the bias of the 2SLS estimator in the linear instrumental vari-ables regression with one endogenous regressor only. By using asymptotic expansion techniques we approximate 2SLS coefficient estimation bias under various scenarios regarding the number and strength of instruments.The...

This paper compares the economic questions addressed by instrumental variables estimators with those addressed by structural approaches. We discuss Marschak's Maxim: estimators should be selected on the basis of their ability to answer well-posed economic problems with minimal assumptions. A key...

This paper formulates and estimates multistage production functions for children's cognitive and noncognitive skills. Skills are determined by parental environments and investments at different stages of childhood. We estimate the elasticity of substitution between investments in one period and...

The recent literature on instrumental variables (IV) features models in which agents sort into treatment status on the basis of gains from treatment as well as on baselinepretreatment levels. Components of the gains known to the agents and acted on by them may not be known by the observing...

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...

I formulate and study a model of undirected dyadic link formation which allows for assortative matching on observed agent characteristics (homophily) as well as unrestricted agent level heterogeneity in link surplus (degree heterogeneity). Similar to fixed effects panel data analyses, the joint...

We study econometric models of complete information games with ordered action spaces, such as the number of store fronts operated in a market by a firm, or the daily number of flights on a city-pair offered by an airline. The model generalises single agent models such as ordered probit and logit...

We develop a new direct approach to approximating suprema of general empirical processes by a sequence of suprema of Gaussian processes, without taking the route of approximating empirical processes themselves in the sup-norm. We prove an abstract approximation theorem that is applicable to a...

This paper provides inference methods for best linear approximations to functions which are known to lie within a band. It extends the partial identification literature by allowing the upper and lower functions defining the band to be any functions, including ones carrying an index, which can be...

In this note, we characterize the semiparametric efficiency bound for a class of semi- parametric models in which the unknown nuisance functions are identified via nonparametric conditional moment restrictions with possibly non-nested or over-lapping conditioning sets, and the finite dimensional...