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arXiv 1608.05142stat.MEecon.EM
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离散结果分位数和分位数效应函数的通类推理

Generic Inference on Quantile and Quantile Effect Functions for Discrete Outcomes

Victor Chernozhukov, Iván Fernández-Val, Blaise Melly, Kaspar Wüthrich

摘要:

分位数和分位数效应函数由于其自然和直观的解释,是描述性和因果分析的重要工具。这些函数的现有推断方法不适用于离散随机变量。本文给出了可能离散随机变量的分位数和分位数效应函数的同时置信带的一种简单、实用的构造方法。它是基于一个自然的转换同时置信带的分布函数,这是很容易获得的许多问题。这种结构是通用的,不依赖于根本问题的性质。它与参数、半参数和非参数建模方法结合使用,用于观测分布和反事实分布,并且不依赖于抽样方案。我们应用我们的方法来描述分布的影响,保险覆盖率对医疗保健利用,并获得种族测试分数差距的分布分解。我们发现,全民保险覆盖增加了整个分布中的医生就诊次数,并且种族测试分数差距在早期很小,但由于影响儿童发展的社会经济因素,特别是在分布的顶部,随着年龄的增长而增长。这些是新的、有趣的实证研究结果,补充了以前只关注平均效应的分析。在这两个应用程序中,感兴趣的结果是离散的渲染现有的推理方法无效获得统一的置信带观察和反事实的分位数函数和他们的差异-分位数效应函数。

英文摘要:

Quantile and quantile effect functions are important tools for descriptive and causal analyses due to their natural and intuitive interpretation. Existing inference methods for these functions do not apply to discrete random variables. This paper offers a simple, practical construction of simultaneous confidence bands for quantile and quantile effect functions of possibly discrete random variables. It is based on a natural transformation of simultaneous confidence bands for distribution functions, which are readily available for many problems. The construction is generic and does not depend on the nature of the underlying problem. It works in conjunction with parametric, semiparametric, and nonparametric modeling methods for observed and counterfactual distributions, and does not depend on the sampling scheme. We apply our method to characterize the distributional impact of insurance coverage on health care utilization and obtain the distributional decomposition of the racial test score gap. We find that universal insurance coverage increases the number of doctor visits across the entire distribution, and that the racial test score gap is small at early ages but grows with age due to socio economic factors affecting child development especially at the top of the distribution. These are new, interesting empirical findings that complement previous analyses that focused on mean effects only. In both applications, the outcomes of interest are discrete rendering existing inference methods invalid for obtaining uniform confidence bands for observed and counterfactual quantile functions and for their difference -- the quantile effects functions.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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