A regularization approach to the many instruments problem
Abstract
This paper focuses on the estimation of a finite dimensional parameter in a linear model where the number of instruments is very large or infinite. In order to improve the small sample properties of standard instrumental variable (IV) estimators, we propose three modified IV estimators based on three different ways of inverting the covariance matrix of the instruments. These inverses involve a regularization or smoothing parameter. It should be stressed that no restriction on the number of instruments is needed and that all the instruments are used in the estimation. We show that the three estimators are asymptotically normal and attain the semiparametric efficiency bound. Higher-order analysis of the MSE reveals that the bias of the modified estimators does not depend on the number of instruments. Finally, we suggest a data-driven method for selecting the regularization parameter. Interestingly, our regularization techniques lead to a consistent nonparametric estimation of the optimal instrument.Download Info
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Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Econometrics.
Volume (Year): 170 (2012)
Issue (Month): 2 ()
Pages: 383-398
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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jeconom
Related research
Keywords: Many instruments; Mean square error; Regularization methods;References
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- 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.
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