Classification Error in Dynamic Discrete Choice Models: Implications for Female Labor Supply Behavior

Michael Keane () and Robert M. Sauer

Econometrica, 2009, vol. 77, issue 3, 975-991

Abstract: Two key issues in the literature on female labor supply are (i) whether persistence in employment status is due to unobserved heterogeneity or state dependence, and (ii) whether fertility is exogenous to labor supply. Until recently, the consensus was that unobserved heterogeneity is very important and fertility is endogenous. Hyslop (1999) challenged this. Using a dynamic panel probit model of female labor supply including heterogeneity and state dependence, he found that adding autoregressive errors led to a substantial diminution in the importance of heterogeneity. This, in turn, meant he could not reject that fertility is exogenous. Here, we extend Hyslop (1999) to allow classification error in employment status, using an estimation procedure developed by Keane and Wolpin (2001) and Keane and Sauer (2005). We find that a fairly small amount of classification error is enough to overturn Hyslop's conclusions, leading to overwhelming rejection of the hypothesis of exogenous fertility. Copyright 2009 The Econometric Society.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.3982/ECTA7642 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Classification Error in Dynamic Discrete Choice Models: Implications for Female Labor Supply Behavior (2006)
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:ecm:emetrp:v:77:y:2009:i:3:p:975-991

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.economet ... ordering-back-issues

Access Statistics for this article

Econometrica is currently edited by Guido Imbens

More articles in Econometrica from Econometric Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().