It is well known that a one-step scoring estimator that starts from any N^{1/2}-consistent estimator has the same first-order asymptotic efficiency as the maximum likelihood estimator. This paper extends this result to k-step estimators and test statistics for k = 1, higher-order asymptotic...

This paper studies the Minimum Divergence (MD) class of estimators for econometric models specified through moment restrictions. We show that MD estimators can be obtained as solutions to a computationally tractable optimization problem. This problem is similar to the one solved by the...

Initially this discussion briefly reviews the contributions of Andrews and Stock and Kitamura, henceforth A, S and K respectively. Because the breadth of material covered by AS and K is so vast, we concentrate only on a few topics. Generalized empirical likelihood (GEL) provides the focus for...

In an effort to improve the small sample properties of generalized method of moments (GMM) estimators, a number of alternative estimators have been suggested. These include empirical likelihood (EL), continuous updating, and exponential tilting estimators. We show that these estimators share a...