This paper presents recent developments in model selection and model averaging for parametric and nonparametric models. While there is extensive literature on model selection under parametric settings, we present recently developed results in the context of nonparametric models. In applications,...

In the practice of program evaluation, choosing the covariates and the functional form of the propensity score is an important choice for estimating treatment effects. This paper proposes data-driven model selection and model averaging procedures that address this issue for the propensity score...

Does crime in a neighborhood cause future crime? Without a source of quasi-experimental variation in local crime, we develop an identification strategy that leverages a recently developed test of exogeneity (Caetano (2015)) to select a feasible regression model for causal inference. Using a...

For numerous applications it is of interest to provide full probabilistic forecasts, which are able to assign probabilities to each predicted outcome. Therefore, attention is shifting constantly from conditional mean models to probabilistic distributional models capturing location, scale, shape...

We propose a nonparametric method to study which characteristics provide incremental information for the cross section of expected returns. We use the adaptive group LASSO to select characteristics and to estimate how they affect expected returns nonparametrically. Our method can handle a large...

We propose a nonparametric method to test which characteristics provide independent information for the cross section of expected returns. We use the adaptive group LASSO to select characteristics and to estimate how they affect expected returns nonparametrically. Our method can handle a large...