Identification in a regression discontinuity (RD) design hinges on the discontinuity in the probability of treatment when a covariate (assignment variable) exceeds a known threshold. If the assignment variable is measured with error, however, the discontinuity in the first stage relationship...

This report surveys six influential econometric textbooks in terms of their mathematical treatment of causal concepts. It highlights conceptual and notational differences among the authors and points to areas where they deviate significantly from modern standards of causal analysis. We find that...

The bootstrap is a convenient tool for calculating standard errors of the parameter estimates of complicated econometric models. Unfortunately, the bootstrap can be very time-consuming. In a recent paper, Honoré and Hu (2017), we propose a "Poor (Wo)man's Bootstrap" based on one-dimensional...

Identification in a regression discontinuity (RD) design hinges on the discontinuity in the probability of treatment when a covariate (assignment variable) exceeds a known threshold. If the assignment variable is measured with error, however, the discontinuity in the first stage relationship...

This paper shows through regression simulations that, when there are two highly collinear regressors, at least one of which has a simultaneous relationship with the dependent variable, t-ratios typically do not decline to non-significance as text book theory predicts. Coefficients and/or...

Textbook theory predicts that t-ratios decline towards zero in regressions when there is collinearity between two regressors. This paper shows that this often does not occur if the regression suffers from simultaneity or omitted variable bias. With more collinearity, t-ratios generally increase...

The centrality in a network is a popular metric for agents' network positions and is often used in regression models to model the network effect on an outcome variable of interest. In empirical studies, researchers often adopt a two-stage procedure to first estimate the centrality and then infer...

This paper characterizes the impact of serial dependence on the non-asymptotic estimation error bound of penalized regressions (PRs). Focusing on the direct relationship between the degree of cross-correlation of covariates and the estimation error bound of PRs, we show that orthogonal or weakly...

Financial analysts assume that the reliability of predictions derived from regression analysis improves with sample size. This is generally true because larger samples tend to produce less noisy results than smaller samples. But this is not always the case. Some observations are more relevant...