Empirical analysis often involves using inexact measures of desired predictors. The bias created by the correlation between the problematic regressors and the error term motivates the need for instrumental variables estimation. This paper considers a class of estimators that can be used when...

Practitioners often have at their disposal a large number of instruments that are weakly exogenous for the parameter of interest. However, not every instrument has the same predictive power for the endogenous variable, and using too many instruments can induce bias. We consider two ways of...

We investigate familial relationships in consumption patterns using a sample of parents and their children from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We find a positive and statistically significant parent-specific effect on children’ s consumption even after controlling for the effect of...

In forecasting and regression analysis, it is often necessary to select predictors from a large feasible set. When the predictors have no natural ordering, an exhaustive evaluation of all possible combinations of the predictors can be computationally costly. This paper considers 'boosting' as a...