Decentralization estimators for instrumental variable quantile regression models

Abstract

The instrumental variable quantile regression (IVQR) model of Hansen (2005, 2006) is a flexible and powerful tool for evaluating the impact of endogenous covariates on the whole distribution of the outcome of interest. Estimation, however, is computationally burdensome because the GMM objective function is non-smooth and non-convex. This paper shows that the IVQR estimation problem can be decomposed into a set of conventional quantile regression sub-problems, which are convex and can be solved efficiently. This allows for reformulating the original estimation problem as the problem of finding the fixed point of a low dimensional map. This reformulation leads to new identification results and, most importantly, to practical, easy to implement, and computationally tractable estimators. We explore estimation algorithms based on the contraction mapping theorem and algorithms based on root-finding methods. We prove consistency and asymptotic normality of our estimators and establish the validity of a bootstrap procedure for estimating the limiting laws. Monte Carlo simulations support the estimator's enhanced computational tractability and demonstrate desirable finite sample properties.