Exogeneity tests, incomplete models, weak identification and non-Gaussian distributions: invariance and finite-sample distributional theory
We
study the distribution of Durbin-Wu-Hausman (DWH) and Revankar-Hartley (RH)
tests for exogeneity from a finite-sample viewpoint, under the null and
alternative hypotheses. We consider linear structural models with possibly
non-Gaussian errors, where structural parameters may not be identified and
where reduced forms can be incompletely specified (or nonparametric). On level
control, we characterize the null distributions of all the test statistics.
Through conditioning and invariance arguments, we show that these distributions
do not involve nuisance parameters. In particular, this applies to several test
statistics for which no finite-sample distributional theory is yet available, such
as the standard statistic proposed by Hausman (1978). The distributions of the
test statistics may be non-standard – so corrections to usual asymptotic
critical values are needed – but the characterizations are sufficiently
explicit to yield finite-sample (Monte-Carlo) tests of the exogeneity hypothesis.
The procedures so obtained are robust to weak identification, missing
instruments or misspecified reduced forms, and can easily be adapted to allow
for parametric non-Gaussian error distributions. We give a general invariance
result (block triangular invariance) for exogeneity test statistics. This
property yields a convenient exogeneity canonical form and a parsimonious
reduction of the parameters on which power depends. In the extreme case where
no structural parameter is identified, the distributions under the alternative
hypothesis and the null hypothesis are identical, so the power function is
flat, for all the exogeneity statistics. However, as soon as identification does
not fail completely, this phenomenon typically disappears. We present
simulation evidence which confirms the finite-sample theory. The theoretical
results are illustrated with two empirical examples: the relation between trade
and economic growth, and the widely studied problem of the return of education
to earnings.
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