Impossibility Results for Nondifferentiable Functionals.

We examine challenges to estimation and inference when the objects of interest are nondifferentiable functionals of the underlying data distribution. This situation arises in a number of applications of bounds analysis and moment inequality models, and in recent work on estimating optimal dynamic tr...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Econometrica Vol. 80; no. 4; pp. 1769 - 1791
Autores principales: Hirano, Keisuke, Porter, Jack R.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell Jul2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=78110085&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: ssf
    uiTerm: 78110085
    longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson)
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        00129682
        ECN
      jtl: Econometrica
      issn: 00129682
      maglogo: Y
    pubinfo:
      dt: Jul2012
      vid: 80
      iid: 4
      pid: 480
      pub: Wiley-Blackwell
    artinfo:
      ui:
        78110085
        10.3982/ECTA8681
      ppf: 1769
      ppct: 22
      formats:
      tig:
        atl: Impossibility Results for Nondifferentiable Functionals.
      aug:
        au:
          Hirano, Keisuke
          Porter, Jack R.
        affil:
          Dept. of Economics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, U.S.A.;
          Dept. of Economics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A.;
      su:
        Nondifferentiable functions
        Mathematical statistics
        Data distribution
        Mathematical bounds
        Asymptotic distribution
      sug:
        subj:
          Nondifferentiable functions
          Mathematical statistics
          Data distribution
          Mathematical bounds
          Asymptotic distribution
      keyword:
        bias-correction
        bounds
        Local asymptotics
        moment inequality models
        bias-correction
        bounds
        Local asymptotics
        moment inequality models
      ab: We examine challenges to estimation and inference when the objects of interest are nondifferentiable functionals of the underlying data distribution. This situation arises in a number of applications of bounds analysis and moment inequality models, and in recent work on estimating optimal dynamic treatment regimes. Drawing on earlier work relating differentiability to the existence of unbiased and regular estimators, we show that if the target object is not differentiable in the parameters of the data distribution, there exist no estimator sequences that are locally asymptotically unbiased or α-quantile unbiased. This places strong limits on estimators, bias correction methods, and inference procedures, and provides motivation for considering other criteria for evaluating estimators and inference procedures, such as local asymptotic minimaxity and one-sided quantile unbiasedness.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
    refInfo:
    copyright:
      @attributes:
        flag: N
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N