In order to reduce the finite sample bias and improve the rate of convergence, local polynomial estimators have been introduced into the econometric literature to estimate the regression discontinuity model. In this paper, we show that, when the degree of smoothness is known, the local...

This paper proposes a nonparametric test for conditional independence that is easy to implement, yet powerful in the sense that it is consistent and achieves n^{-1/2} local power. The test statistic is based on an estimator of the topological "distance" between restricted and unrestricted...