Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > Misspecification-Robust Asymptotic and Bootstra...

Electronic data

  • LancasterWP2025_006

    Final published version, 657 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

View graph of relations

Misspecification-Robust Asymptotic and Bootstrap Inference for Nonsmooth GMM

Research output: Working paper

Published
Publication date12/05/2025
Place of PublicationLancaster
PublisherLancaster University, Department of Economics
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Publication series

NameEconomics Working Papers Series

Abstract

This paper develops an asymptotic distribution theory for Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimators, including the one-step and iterated estimators, when the moment conditions are nonsmooth and possibly misspecified. We consider nonsmooth moment functions that are directionally differentiable—such as absolute value functions and functions with kinks—but not indicator functions. While GMM estimators remain √n-consistent and asymptotically normal for directionally differentiable moments, conventional GMM variance estimators are inconsistent under moment misspecification. We propose a consistent estimator for the asymptotic variance for valid inference. Additionally, we show that the nonparametric bootstrap provides asymptotically
valid confidence intervals. Our theory is applied to quantile regression with endogeneity under the location-scale model, offering a robust inference procedure for the GMM estimators in Machado and Santos Silva (2019). Simulation results support our theoretical findings.