Testing for causal e ffects in a generalized regression model with endogenous regressors

A unifying framework to test for causal effects in nonlinear models is proposed. We consider a generalized linear-index regression model with endogenous regressors and no parametric assumptions on the error disturbances. To test the significance of the effect of an endogenous regressor, we propose a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Abrevaya, Jason, Hausman, Jerry A., Khan, Shakeeb
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: The Econometric Society 2012
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/73135
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5433-9435
Description
Summary:A unifying framework to test for causal effects in nonlinear models is proposed. We consider a generalized linear-index regression model with endogenous regressors and no parametric assumptions on the error disturbances. To test the significance of the effect of an endogenous regressor, we propose a statistic that is a kernel-weighted version of the rank correlation statistic (tau) of Kendall (1938). The semiparametric model encompasses previous cases considered in the literature (continuous endogenous regressors (Blundell and Powell (2003)) and a single binary endogenous regressor (Vytlacil and Yildiz (2007))), but the testing approach is the first to allow for (i) multiple discrete endogenous regressors, (ii) endogenous regressors that are neither discrete nor continuous (e.g., a censored variable), and (iii) an arbitrary “mix” of endogenous regressors (e.g., one binary regressor and one continuous regressor).