The Distribution of the Instrumental Variables Estimator and Its t-RatioWhen the Instrument is a Poor One

This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data

The Distribution of the Instrumental Variables Estimator and Its t-RatioWhen the Instrument is a Poor One

Author Info

Charles R. Nelson
Richard Startz

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Richard Startz

Abstract

When the instrumental variable is a poor one, in the sense of being weakly correlated with the variable it proxies, the small sample distribution of the IV estimator is concentrated around a value that is inversely related to the feedback in the system and which is often further from the true value than is the plim of OLS. The sample variance of residuals similarly becomes concentrated around a value which reflects feedback and not the variance of the disturbance. The distribution of the t-ratio reflects both of these effects, stronger feedback producing larger t-ratios. Thus, in situations where OLS is badly biased, a poor instrument will lead to spurious inferences under IV estimation with high probability, and generally perform worse than OLS.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Publisher Info
Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Technical Working Papers with number 0069.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: Sep 1988
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberte:0069

Note: ME
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().

Related research
Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Article
- Nelson, Charles R & Startz, Richard, 1990. "The Distribution of the Instrumental Variables Estimator and Its t-Ratio When the Instrument Is a Poor One," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(1), pages S125-40, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Paper
- Nelson, C. & Startz, R., 1988. "The Distribution Of The Instrumental Variables Estimator And Its T-Ratio When The Instrument Is A Poor One," Working Papers 88-07, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
- Nelson, C. & Startz, R., 1988. "The Distribution Of The Instrumental Variables Estimator And Its T-Ratio When The Instrument Is A Poor One," Discussion Papers in Economics at the University of Washington 88-07, Department of Economics at the University of Washington.

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

Hall, Robert E, 1978. "Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 971-87, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Nelson, C. & Startz, R., 1988. "Some Furthere Results On The Exact Small Sample Properties Of The Instrumental Variable Estimator," Discussion Papers in Economics at the University of Washington 88-06, Department of Economics at the University of Washington.
Other versions:
- Nelson, C. & Startz, R., 1988. "Some Furthere Results On The Exact Small Sample Properties Of The Instrumental Variable Estimator," Working Papers 88-06, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
- Charles R. Nelson & Richard Startz, 1988. "Some Further Results on the Exact Small Sample Properties of the Instrumental Variable Estimator," NBER Technical Working Papers 0068, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
- Nelson, Charles R & Startz, Richard, 1990. "Some Further Results on the Exact Small Sample Properties of the Instrumental Variable Estimator," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 967-76, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1982. "Generalized Instrumental Variables Estimation of Nonlinear Rational Expectations Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1269-86, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)

Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? Citation analysis on IDEAS includes online papers that are freely accessible and whose text could be automatically analyzed, currently about 210000 papers.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-19.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.