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Selecting Instrumental Variables in a Data Rich Environment

Author

Listed:
  • Ng Serena

    (Columbia University)

  • Bai Jushan

    (New York University)

Abstract

Practitioners often have at their disposal a large number of instruments that are weakly exogenous for the parameter of interest. However, not every instrument has the same predictive power for the endogenous variable, and using too many instruments can induce bias. We consider two ways of handling these problems. The first is to form principal components from the observed instruments, and the second is to reduce the number of instruments by subset variable selection. For the latter, we consider boosting, a method that does not require an a priori ordering of the instruments. We also suggest a way to pre-order the instruments and then screen the instruments using the goodness of fit of the first stage regression and information criteria. We find that the principal components are often better instruments than the observed data except when the number of relevant instruments is small. While no single method dominates, a hard-thresholding method based on the t test generally yields estimates with small biases and small root-mean-squared errors.

Suggested Citation

  • Ng Serena & Bai Jushan, 2009. "Selecting Instrumental Variables in a Data Rich Environment," Journal of Time Series Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-34, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jtsmet:v:1:y:2009:i:1:n:4
    DOI: 10.2202/1941-1928.1014
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Alexandre Belloni & Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen, 2014. "High-Dimensional Methods and Inference on Structural and Treatment Effects," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 29-50, Spring.
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    6. Hansen, Christian & Kozbur, Damian, 2014. "Instrumental variables estimation with many weak instruments using regularized JIVE," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 182(2), pages 290-308.
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    9. Cheng, Xu & Liao, Zhipeng, 2015. "Select the valid and relevant moments: An information-based LASSO for GMM with many moments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 186(2), pages 443-464.
    10. Gambaro, Ludovica & Neidhöfer, Guido & Spiess, C. Katharina, 2021. "The effect of early childhood education and care services on the integration of refugee families," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    11. Alexandre Belloni & Victor Chernozhukov & Christian Hansen, 2010. "LASSO Methods for Gaussian Instrumental Variables Models," Papers 1012.1297, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2011.
    12. Bayar, Omer, 2018. "Weak instruments and estimated monetary policy rules," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 308-317.
    13. Max-Sebastian Dov`i, 2021. "Inference on the New Keynesian Phillips Curve with Very Many Instrumental Variables," Papers 2101.09543, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2021.
    14. Xu Cheng & Zhipeng Liao, 2012. "Select the Valid and Relevant Moments: A One-Step Procedure for GMM with Many Moments," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-045, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    15. Sirisankanan, Aeggarchat, 2023. "The Response of Household Savings to Anticipated Income Changes: Natural Experiments Using Natural and Non-Natural Factors," Journal of Economic Development, The Economic Research Institute, Chung-Ang University, vol. 48(2), pages 1-31, June.
    16. Victor Chernozhukov & Iv'an Fern'andez-Val & Chen Huang & Weining Wang, 2024. "Arellano-Bond LASSO Estimator for Dynamic Linear Panel Models," Papers 2402.00584, arXiv.org.
    17. Omer Bayar, 2022. "Reducing large datasets to improve the identification of estimated policy rules," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 113-140, July.
    18. Hao Hao & Bai Huang & Tae-Hwy Lee, 2022. "Model Averaging Estimation of Panel Data Models with Many Instruments and Boosting," Working Papers 202212, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics.
    19. Belloni, Alexandre & Hansen, Christian & Newey, Whitney, 2022. "High-dimensional linear models with many endogenous variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 228(1), pages 4-26.
    20. Geoffrey R. Dunbar & Casey Jones, 2018. "The (Un)Demand for Money in Canada," Staff Working Papers 18-20, Bank of Canada.
    21. Vipul Bhatt & N. Kundan Kishor & Hardik Marfatia, 2020. "Estimating Excess Sensitivity and Habit Persistence in Consumption Using Greenbook Forecasts," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(2), pages 257-284, April.
    22. Berriel, Tiago & Medeiros, Marcelo C. & Sena, Marcelo J., 2016. "Instrument selection for estimation of a forward-looking Phillips Curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 123-125.
    23. Scheufele, Rolf, 2010. "Evaluating the German (New Keynesian) Phillips curve," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 145-164, August.

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