We examine evidence on omitted-ability bias in estimates of the economic return to schooling, using proxies for unobserved ability. We consider measurement error in these ability proxies and the potential endogeneity of both experience and schooling, and examine wages at labor market entry and...

This paper documents the function and use of the Gretl function package VCwrapper.pdf that implements the VC method for estimating time-varying coefficients in linear models as described in Schlicht (2021). It builds on the VCC program by Schlicht (2021a), is easy to use and highly configurable....

Official Chinese GDP growth rates have been remarkably smooth over the past decade, in contrast with alternative Chinese economic data. To better identify Chinese business cycles, we construct a sparse partial least squares (PLS) factor from a wide array of Chinese higher-frequency data,...

Linear instrumental variable estimators, such as two-stage least squares (TSLS), are commonly interpreted as estimating positively weighted averages of causal effects, referred to as local average treatment effects (LATEs). We examine whether the LATE interpretation actually applies to the types...

Missing data or missing values are a common phenomenon in applied panel data research and of great interest for panel data unit root testing. The standard approach in the literature is to balance the panel by removing units and/or trimming a common time period for all units. However, this...

We give some Monte Carlo results on the performance of two robust alternatives to least squares regression estimation - least absolute residuals and the one-step "sine" estimator. We show how to scale the residuals for the sine estimator to achieve constant efficiency at the Gaussian across...

At the present time there is no well accepted test for determining whether or not robust regression parameter estimates are significantly different than least squares estimates. Thus. we propose and demonstrate the efficacy of two Wald-like statistical tests for the above purposes using...