We derive a new family of probability densities that have the property of closed-form integrability. This flexible family finds a variety of applications, of which we illustrate density forecasting from models of the AR-ARCH class for U.S. inflation. We find that the hypernormal distribution for...

We give two new approaches to testing a conditional form of exogeneity. This condition ensures unconfoundedness and identification of effects of interest in structural systems. As these approaches do not rely on the absence of causal effects of treatment under the null, they complement earlier...

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 causal notions embodied in the concept of Granger causality have been argued to belong to a different category than those of Judea Pearl's Causal Model, and so far their relation has remained obscure. Here, we demonstrate that these concepts are in fact closely linked by showing how each...

This paper is concerned with extending the familiar notion of fixed effects to nonlinear setups with infinite dimensional unobservables like preferences. The main result is that a generalized version of differencing identifies local average structural derivatives (LASDs) in very general...

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...

We study the scope of local indirect least squares (LILS) methods for nonparametrically estimating average marginal effects of an endogenous cause X on a response Y in triangular structural systems that need not exhibit linearity, separability, or monotonicity in scalar unobservables. One main...

We argue that the current framework for predictive ability testing (e.g.,West, 1996) is not necessarily useful for real-time forecast selection, i.e., for assessing which of two competing forecasting methods will perform better in the future. We propose an alternative framework for out-of-sample...

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...