This paper describes a semiparametric Bayesian method for analyzing duration data. The proposed estimator specifies a complete functional form for duration spells, but allows flexibility by introducing an individual heterogeneity term, which follows a Dirichlet mixture distribution. I show how...

In recent years there has been increasing concern about the identification of parameters in dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models. Given the structure of DSGE models it may be difficult to determine whether a parameter is identified. For the researcher using Bayesian methods, a...

This paper discusses the evaluation problem using observational data when the timing of treatment is an outcome of a stochastic process. We show that the duration framework in discrete time provides a fertile ground for effect evaluations. We suggest easy-to-use nonparametric survival function...

Nonparametric techniques are usually seen as a statistic device for data description and exploration, and not as a tool for estimating models with a richer economic structure, which are often required for policy analysis. This paper presents an example where nonparametric flexibility can be...

In this paper nonparametric instrumental variable estimation of local average treatment effects (LATE) is extended to incorporate confounding covariates. Estimation of local average treatment effects is appealing since their identification relies on much weaker assumptions than the...

We compare the empirical performance of unitary and collective labor supply models, using representative data from the Dutch DNB Household Survey. We conduct a nonparametric analysis that avoids the distortive impact of an erroneously specified functional form for the preferences and/or the...

A large part of the recent literature on program evaluation has focused on estimation of the average effect of the treatment under assumptions of unconfoundedness or ignorability following the seminal work by Rubin (1974) and Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983). In many cases however, researchers are...

Currently available asymptotic results in the literature suggest that matching estimators have higher variance than reweighting estimators. The extant literature comparing the finite sample properties of matching to specific reweighting estimators, however, has concluded that reweighting...

Economic conditions such as convexity, homogeneity, homotheticity, and monotonicity are all important assumptions or consequences of assumptions of economic functionals to be estimated. Recent research has seen a renewed interest in imposing constraints in nonparametric regression. We survey the...