Efficient semiparametric estimation of a partially linear quantile regression model

This paper is concerned with estimating a conditional quantile function that is assumed to be partially linear. The paper develops a simple estimator of the parametric component of the conditional quantile. The semiparametric efficiency bound for the parametric component is derived, and two types of efficient estimators are considered. Asymptotic properties of the proposed estimators are established under regularity conditions. Some Monte Carlo experiments indicate that the proposed estimators perform well in small samples

Maximal uniform convergence rates in parametric estimation problems

This paper considers parametric estimation problems with independent, identically nonregularly distributed data. It focuses on rate efficiency, in the sense of maximal possible convergence rates of stochastically bounded estimators, as an optimality criterion, largely unexplored in parametric estimation. Under mild conditions, the Hellinger metric, defined on the space of parametric probability measures, is shown to be an essentially universally applicable tool to determine maximal possible convergence rates. These rates are shown to be attainable in general classes of parametric estimation problems

Inference in Additively Separable Models With a High-Dimensional Set of Conditioning Variables

This paper studies nonparametric series estimation and inference for the effect of a single variable of interest x on an outcome y in the presence of potentially high-dimensional conditioning variables z. The context is an additively separable model E[y|x, z] = g0(x) + h0(z). The model is high-dimensional in the sense that the series of approximating functions for h0(z) can have more terms than the sample size, thereby allowing z to have potentially very many measured characteristics. The model is required to be approximately sparse: h0(z) can be approximated using only a small subset of series terms whose identities are unknown. This paper proposes an estimation and inference method for g0(x) called Post-Nonparametric Double Selection which is a generalization of Post-Double Selection. Standard rates of convergence and asymptotic normality for the estimator are shown to hold uniformly over a large class of sparse data generating processes. A simulation study illustrates finite sample estimation properties of the proposed estimator and coverage properties of the corresponding confidence intervals. Finally, an empirical application to college admissions policy demonstrates the practical implementation of the proposed method