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The first chapter examines a linear regression model with a binary endogenous explanatory variable (EEV) and weak instruments. By estimating a binary response model via maximum likelihood in the first step, the nonlinear fitted probability can be constructed as an alternative instrument for the binary EEV. I show that this two-step instrumental variables (IV) estimation procedure produces a consistent and asymptotically normal IV estimator, even though the alternate linear two stage least squares estimator is inconsistent with nonstandard asymptotics. Results are illustrated in an application evaluating the effects of electrification on employment growth.The remaining two chapters study statistical inference when the population is treated as finite. When the sample is a relatively large proportion of the population, finite population inference serves as a more appealing alternative to the usual infinite population approach. Nevertheless, the finite population inference methods that are currently available only cover the difference-in-means estimator or independent observations. Consequently, these methods cannot be applied to the many branches of empirical research that use linear or nonlinear models where dependence due to clustering needs to be accounted for in computing the standard errors. The second and third chapters fill in these gaps in the existing literature by extending the seminal work of Abadie, Athey, Imbens, and Wooldridge (2020).In the second chapter, I derive the finite population asymptotic variance for M-estimators with both smooth and nonsmooth objective functions, where observations are independent. I also find that the usual robust "sandwich" form standard error is conservative as it has been shown in the linear case. The proposed asymptotic variance of M-estimators accounts for two sources of variation. In addition to the usual sampling-based uncertainty arising from (possibly) not observing the entire population, there is also design-based uncertainty, which is usually ignored in the common inference method, resulting from lack of knowledge of the counterfactuals. Under this alternative framework, we can obtain smaller standard errors of M-estimators when the population is considered as finite.In the third chapter, I establish asymptotic properties of M-estimators under finite populations with clustered data, allowing for unbalanced and unbounded cluster sizes in the limit. I distinguish between two situations that justify computing clustered standard errors: i) cluster sampling induced by random sampling of groups of units, and ii) cluster assignment caused by the correlated assignment of "treatment" within the same group. I show that one should only adjust the standard errors for clustering when there is cluster sampling, cluster assignment, or both, for a general class of linear and nonlinear estimators. I also find the finite population cluster-robust asymptotic variance (CRAV) is no larger than the usual infinite population CRAV, in the matrix sense. The methods are applied to an empirical study evaluating the effect of tenure clock stopping policies on tenure rates.
The collection of chapters in Volume 43 Part B of Advances in Econometrics serves as a tribute to one of the most innovative, influential, and productive econometricians of his generation, Professor M. Hashem Pesaran.
Mounting failures of replication in social and biological sciences give a new urgency to critically appraising proposed reforms. This book pulls back the cover on disagreements between experts charged with restoring integrity to science. It denies two pervasive views of the role of probability in inference: to assign degrees of belief, and to control error rates in a long run. If statistical consumers are unaware of assumptions behind rival evidence reforms, they can't scrutinize the consequences that affect them (in personalized medicine, psychology, etc.). The book sets sail with a simple tool: if little has been done to rule out flaws in inferring a claim, then it has not passed a severe test. Many methods advocated by data experts do not stand up to severe scrutiny and are in tension with successful strategies for blocking or accounting for cherry picking and selective reporting. Through a series of excursions and exhibits, the philosophy and history of inductive inference come alive. Philosophical tools are put to work to solve problems about science and pseudoscience, induction and falsification.
This 2005 volume contains the papers presented in honor of the lifelong achievements of Thomas J. Rothenberg on the occasion of his retirement. The authors of the chapters include many of the leading econometricians of our day, and the chapters address topics of current research significance in econometric theory. The chapters cover four themes: identification and efficient estimation in econometrics, asymptotic approximations to the distributions of econometric estimators and tests, inference involving potentially nonstationary time series, such as processes that might have a unit autoregressive root, and nonparametric and semiparametric inference. Several of the chapters provide overviews and treatments of basic conceptual issues, while others advance our understanding of the properties of existing econometric procedures and/or propose others. Specific topics include identification in nonlinear models, inference with weak instruments, tests for nonstationary in time series and panel data, generalized empirical likelihood estimation, and the bootstrap.
A Turing Award-winning computer scientist and statistician shows how understanding causality has revolutionized science and will revolutionize artificial intelligence "Correlation is not causation." This mantra, chanted by scientists for more than a century, has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. Today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, instigated by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and established causality -- the study of cause and effect -- on a firm scientific basis. His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl's work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why.
Drawing upon the recent explosion of research in the field, a diverse group of scholars surveys the latest strategies for solving ecological inference problems, the process of trying to infer individual behavior from aggregate data. The uncertainties and information lost in aggregation make ecological inference one of the most difficult areas of statistical inference, but these inferences are required in many academic fields, as well as by legislatures and the Courts in redistricting, marketing research by business, and policy analysis by governments. This wide-ranging collection of essays offers many fresh and important contributions to the study of ecological inference.
A concise and self-contained introduction to causal inference, increasingly important in data science and machine learning. The mathematization of causality is a relatively recent development, and has become increasingly important in data science and machine learning. This book offers a self-contained and concise introduction to causal models and how to learn them from data. After explaining the need for causal models and discussing some of the principles underlying causal inference, the book teaches readers how to use causal models: how to compute intervention distributions, how to infer causal models from observational and interventional data, and how causal ideas could be exploited for classical machine learning problems. All of these topics are discussed first in terms of two variables and then in the more general multivariate case. The bivariate case turns out to be a particularly hard problem for causal learning because there are no conditional independences as used by classical methods for solving multivariate cases. The authors consider analyzing statistical asymmetries between cause and effect to be highly instructive, and they report on their decade of intensive research into this problem. The book is accessible to readers with a background in machine learning or statistics, and can be used in graduate courses or as a reference for researchers. The text includes code snippets that can be copied and pasted, exercises, and an appendix with a summary of the most important technical concepts.
This user-friendly new edition reflects a modern and accessible approach to experimental design and analysis Design and Analysis of Experiments, Volume 1, Second Edition provides a general introduction to the philosophy, theory, and practice of designing scientific comparative experiments and also details the intricacies that are often encountered throughout the design and analysis processes. With the addition of extensive numerical examples and expanded treatment of key concepts, this book further addresses the needs of practitioners and successfully provides a solid understanding of the relationship between the quality of experimental design and the validity of conclusions. This Second Edition continues to provide the theoretical basis of the principles of experimental design in conjunction with the statistical framework within which to apply the fundamental concepts. The difference between experimental studies and observational studies is addressed, along with a discussion of the various components of experimental design: the error-control design, the treatment design, and the observation design. A series of error-control designs are presented based on fundamental design principles, such as randomization, local control (blocking), the Latin square principle, the split-unit principle, and the notion of factorial treatment structure. This book also emphasizes the practical aspects of designing and analyzing experiments and features: Increased coverage of the practical aspects of designing and analyzing experiments, complete with the steps needed to plan and construct an experiment A case study that explores the various types of interaction between both treatment and blocking factors, and numerical and graphical techniques are provided to analyze and interpret these interactions Discussion of the important distinctions between two types of blocking factors and their role in the process of drawing statistical inferences from an experiment A new chapter devoted entirely to repeated measures, highlighting its relationship to split-plot and split-block designs Numerical examples using SAS® to illustrate the analyses of data from various designs and to construct factorial designs that relate the results to the theoretical derivations Design and Analysis of Experiments, Volume 1, Second Edition is an ideal textbook for first-year graduate courses in experimental design and also serves as a practical, hands-on reference for statisticians and researchers across a wide array of subject areas, including biological sciences, engineering, medicine, pharmacology, psychology, and business.
Information theory and inference, taught together in this exciting textbook, lie at the heart of many important areas of modern technology - communication, signal processing, data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, computational neuroscience, bioinformatics and cryptography. The book introduces theory in tandem with applications. Information theory is taught alongside practical communication systems such as arithmetic coding for data compression and sparse-graph codes for error-correction. Inference techniques, including message-passing algorithms, Monte Carlo methods and variational approximations, are developed alongside applications to clustering, convolutional codes, independent component analysis, and neural networks. Uniquely, the book covers state-of-the-art error-correcting codes, including low-density-parity-check codes, turbo codes, and digital fountain codes - the twenty-first-century standards for satellite communications, disk drives, and data broadcast. Richly illustrated, filled with worked examples and over 400 exercises, some with detailed solutions, the book is ideal for self-learning, and for undergraduate or graduate courses. It also provides an unparalleled entry point for professionals in areas as diverse as computational biology, financial engineering and machine learning.