Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/51798 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5816
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
The delta method is commonly used to calculate confidence intervals of functions of estimated parameters that are differentiable with non-zero, bounded derivatives. When the delta method is inappropriate, researchers usually first use a bootstrap procedure where they i) repeatedly take a draw from the asymptotic distribution of the parameter values and ii) calculate the function value for this draw. They then trim the bottom and top of the distribution of function values to obtain their confidence interval. This note first provides several examples where this procedure and/or delta method fail to provide an appropriate confidence interval. It next presents a method that is appropriate for constructing confidence intervals for functions that are discontinuous or are continuous but have zero or unbounded derivatives. In particular the coverage probabilities for our method converge uniformly to their nominal values, which is not necessarily true for the other methods discussed above.
Subjects: 
confidence intervals
simulation
structural models
policy effects
JEL: 
C12
C15
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
260.85 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.