As I document using evidence from a journal data repository that I manage, the datasets used in empirical work are getting larger. When we use very large datasets, it can be dangerous to rely on standard methods for statistical inference. In addition, we need to worry about computational issues....

In an important class of econometric problems, researchers select a target parameter by maximizing the Euclidean norm of a data-dependent vector. Examples that can be cast into this frame include threshold regression models with estimated thresholds and structural break models with estimated...