Nonparametric estimation of an instrumental regression: A quasi-Bayesian approach based on regularized posterior

A-Tier
Journal: Journal of Econometrics
Year: 2012
Volume: 170
Issue: 2
Pages: 458-475

Authors (2)

Florens, Jean-Pierre (not in RePEc) Simoni, Anna (Centre de Recherche en Économi...)

Score contribution per author:

2.011 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 2.0x A-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We propose a quasi-Bayesian nonparametric approach to estimating the structural relationship φ among endogenous variables when instruments are available. We show that the posterior distribution of φ is inconsistent in the frequentist sense. We interpret this fact as the ill-posedness of the Bayesian inverse problem defined by the relation that characterizes the structural function φ. To solve this problem, we construct a regularized posterior distribution, based on a Tikhonov regularization of the inverse of the marginal variance of the sample, which is justified by a penalized projection argument. This regularized posterior distribution is consistent in the frequentist sense and its mean can be interpreted as the mean of the exact posterior distribution resulting from a Gaussian prior distribution with a shrinking covariance operator.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:eee:econom:v:170:y:2012:i:2:p:458-475
Journal Field
Econometrics
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-29