Concept

Jackknife instrumental-variable — where it appears

An instrumental-variable estimator that builds each row's fitted treatment from a first stage that never saw that row. Leaving the row out removes the bias many instruments give two-stage least squares, at the price of a noisy denominator when the signal is weak.

Named by 3 essays across one field — each of them below, with the objects they name alongside it.

Also named here as limited-information maximum likelihood — the same set of essays touches all of them, so they are one junction rather than several.

Three intervals as one strength is spread thinner, at a concentration of 8. Coverage of three nominal 95.0% intervals on the same 1000 draws of 200 rows at each count, when a total concentration parameter of 8 is spread over 1 to 32 instruments. Two-stage least squares covers 97.2%, 96.4%, 94.0%, 86.7%, 73.2%, 51.5%. Building each row's fitted treatment from a first stage that never saw that row covers 97.1%, 97.2%, 98.3%, 97.8%, 97.9%, 98.7%. Limited-information maximum likelihood with its conventional standard error covers 97.2%, 96.7%, 95.7%, 90.9%, 85.2%, 79.0%. At one instrument the likelihood estimator is two-stage least squares exactly, which is why the first readings of those two agree to the last draw.

Leaving each row out of its own first stage

Spread a fixed first-stage strength over thirty-two instruments and two-stage least squares covers 51.5%. Build each row's fitted treatment from a first stage that never saw that row and the same draws cover 98.7% — through an interval 5.99 times as wide, around an estimate that misses by more than the whole effect on 34.7% of draws. At eight times the strength the same repair covers 95.3% and costs a width factor of 1.66.

instrument · Exclusion
Three intervals as one strength is spread thinner, at a concentration of 8. Coverage of four nominal 95.0% intervals on the same 1000 draws of 200 rows at each count, when a total concentration parameter of 8 is spread over 1 to 32 instruments. Two-stage least squares covers 97.2%, 96.4%, 94.0%, 86.7%, 73.2%, 51.5%. Building each row's fitted treatment from a first stage that never saw that row covers 97.1%, 97.2%, 98.3%, 97.8%, 97.9%, 98.7%. Limited-information maximum likelihood with its conventional standard error covers 97.2%, 96.7%, 95.7%, 90.9%, 85.2%, 79.0%. The same estimate with Bekker's many-instrument standard error covers 97.2%, 97.2%, 97.2%, 95.0%, 94.3%, 93.8%. At one instrument the likelihood estimator is two-stage least squares exactly, which is why the first readings of those two agree to the last draw.

A standard error that knows about the instruments

Limited-information maximum likelihood came out least biased when a concentration parameter of 8 was spread over thirty-two instruments, and its conventional interval covered 79.0%. Bekker's many-instrument standard error covers 93.8% on the same draws, at 63% of the jackknife's width — and it gets there with a median standard error of 0.561 against a true spread of 0.797, because it is large on the draws that need it. At eight times the strength it covers 94.9% at 91% of the jackknife's width, and nothing measured here beats it.

instrument · Exclusion
How far each estimator errs when instruments are cells of unequal size and the confounding moves with them, μ² = 8. Thirty-three cells of 2 to 15 units, thirty-two instruments, 1,000 draws a point. At η = 0, 1, 2: two-stage least squares 0.286, 0.387, 0.593; likelihood, Bekker's interval 0.049, 0.534, 0.830; jackknife instrumental 0.146, 0.325, 0.689; jackknife likelihood, robust interval 0.066, 0.066, 0.195.

Cells of unequal size and an error that follows them

Thirty-two instruments that are the indicators of cells holding 2 to 15 units each, and confounding whose variance is larger in the small cells. Limited-information maximum likelihood, the estimator that came out least biased with many instruments, then errs by 0.534 at a concentration of 8 — further than two-stage least squares — and Bekker's interval covers 74.8%. The jackknife version of the likelihood, which never lets a row's own leverage reach its own fitted value, errs by 0.066 and its robust interval covers 90.6%; at eight times the strength, 94.8% against Bekker's 87.3%. On normal instruments the same unequal variance costs almost nothing, because their leverages are nearly equal.

instrument · Exclusion

Named alongside it

The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.

Concentration parameterInstrumental-variableLimited-information maximum likelihoodTwo-stage least squaresWeak instrumentClosed formCoverageFirst stageInterval widthLeave-one-outLeverageMonte Carlo

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