The paper is concerned with several kinds of stochastic frontier models whose likelihood function is not available in closed form. First, with output-oriented stochastic frontier models whose one-sided errors have a distribution other than the standard ones (exponential or half-normal). The...

Frontier estimation appears in productivity analysis. Firm’s performance is measured by the distance between its output and an optimal production frontier. Frontier estimation becomes difficult if outputs are measured with noise and most approaches rely on restrictive parametric assumptions....

A new uniform expansion is introduced for sums of weighted kernel-based regression residuals from nonparametric or semiparametric models. This expansion is useful for deriving asymptotic properties of semiparametric estimators and test statistics with data-dependent bandwidths, random trimming,...

We propose a panel data approach to disentangle the impact of “one treatment” from the “other treatment” when the observed outcomes are subject to both treatments. We use the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake that took place on January 17, 1995 to illustrate our methodology. We find that...

A common exercise in empirical studies is a “robustness check”, where the researcher examines how certain “core” regression coefficient estimates behave when the regression specification is modified by adding or removing regressors. If the coefficients are plausible and robust, this is...

We show how to do efficient moment based inference using the generalized method of moments (GMM) when data is collected by stratified sampling and the maintained assumption is that the aggregate shares are known.

Usual inference methods for stable distributions are typically based on limit distributions. But asymptotic approximations can easily be unreliable in such cases, for standard regularity conditions may not apply or may hold only weakly. This paper proposes finite-sample tests and confidence sets...

The paper presents a decomposition of a production unit’s cost ratio over two periods into explanatory factors. The explanatory factors are growth in the unit’s cost efficiency, output growth, changes in input prices and technical progress. In order to implement the decomposition, an...