This paper considers random coefficients binary choice models. The main goal is to estimate the density of the random coefficients nonparametrically. This is an ill-posed inverse problem characterized by an integral transform. A new density estimator for the random coefficients is developed,...

An oil lease auction is the classic example motivating a common values model. However, formal testing for common values has been hindered by unobserved auction-level heterogeneity, which is likely to affect both participation in an auction and bidders' willingness to pay. We develop and apply an...

This paper explores a paradox discovered in recent work by Phillips and Su (2009). That paper gave an example in which nonparametric regression is consistent whereas parametric regression is inconsistent even when the true regression functional form is known and used in regression. This appears...

Nonparametric additive modeling is a fundamental tool for statistical data analysis which allows flexible functional forms for conditional mean or quantile functions but avoids the curse of dimensionality for fully nonparametric methods induced by high-dimensional covariates. This paper proposes...

We consider partial identification of finite mixture models in the presence of an observable source of variation in the mixture weights that leaves component distributions unchanged, as is the case in large classes of econometric models. We first show that when the number J of component...

Empirical models of demand for -- and, often, supply of -- differentiated products are widely used in practice, typically employing parametric functional forms and distributions of consumer heterogeneity. We review some recent work studying identification in a broad class of such models. This...

We derive mean-unbiased estimators for the structural parameter in instrumental variables models where the sign of one or more first stage coefficients is known. In the case with a single instrument, the unbiased estimator is unique. For cases with multiple instruments we propose a class of...