Identification and (Fast) Estimation of Large Nonlinear Panel Models with Two-Way Fixed Effects

Martin Mugnier and Ao Wang
Additional contact information
Martin Mugnier: CREST, ENSAE, Institut Polytechnique de Paris
Ao Wang: University of Warwick, CAGE Research Centre

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study a nonlinear two-way fixed effects panel model that allows for unobserved individual heterogeneity in slopes (interacting with covariates) and (unknown) flexibly specified link function. The former is particularly relevant when the researcher is interested in the distributional causal effects of covariates, and the latter mitigates potential misspecification errors due to imposing a known link function. We show that the fixed effects parameters and the (nonparametrically specified) link function can be identified when both individual and time dimensions are large. We propose a novel iterative Gauss-Seidel estimation procedure that overcomes the practical challenge of dimensionality in the number of fixed effects when the dataset is large. We revisit two empirical studies in trade (Helpman et al., 2008) and innovation (Aghion et al., 2013), and find non-negligible unobserved dispersion in trade elasticity (across countries) and the effect of institutional ownership on innovation (across firms). These exercises emphasize the usefulness of our method in capturing flexible (and unobserved) heterogeneity in the causal relationship of interest that may have important implications for the subsequent policy analysis.

Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/w ... werp_1422_-_wang.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:warwec:1422

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Margaret Nash ().