Simple subvector inference on sharp identified set in affine models

Abstract

This paper studies a regularized support function estimator for bounds on components of the parameter vector in the case in which the identified set is a polygon. The proposed regularized estimator has three important properties: (i) it has a uniform asymptotic Gaussian limit in the presence of flat faces in the absence of redundant (or overidentifying) constraints (or vice versa); (ii) the bias from regularization does not enter the first-order limiting distribution; (iii) the estimator remains consistent for sharp (non-enlarged) identified set for the individual components even in the non-regular case. These properties are used to construct uniformly valid confidence sets for an element ${\theta }_1$ of a parameter vector $\theta \in R^d$ that is partially identified by affine moment equality and inequality conditions. The proposed confidence sets can be computed as a solution to a small number of linear and convex quadratic programs, leading to a substantial decrease in computation time and guarantees a global optimum. As a result, the method provides a uniformly valid inference in applications in which the dimension of the parameter space, $d$, and the number of inequalities, $k$, were previously computationally unfeasible ($d,k=100$). The proposed approach can be extended to construct confidence sets for intersection bounds, to construct joint polygon-shaped confidence sets for multiple components of $\theta$, and to find the set of solutions to a linear program. Inference for coefficients in the linear IV regression model with an interval outcome is used as an illustrative example.