Fixed Effects and Bias Due to the Incidental Parameters Problem in the Tobit Model

Abstract The maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) in nonlinear panel data models with fixed effects is widely understood (with a few exceptions) to be biased and inconsistent when T, the length of the panel, is small and fixed. However, there is surprisingly little theoretical or empirical evidence on the behavior of the estimator on which to base this conclusion. The received studies have focused almost exclusively on coefficient estimation in two binary choice models, the probit and logit models. In this note, we use Monte Carlo methods to examine the behavior of the MLE of the fixed effects tobit model. We find that the estimator's behavior is quite unlike that of the estimators of the binary choice models.…

• UO
  University of Georgia