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Review of Economic Studies Vol. 77 No. 1 2009

Pairwise-Difference Estimation of a Dynamic Optimization Model

Han Hong1; Matthew Shum2

1 Stanford University · 2 California Institute of Technology

open access

Abstract

We develop a new estimation methodology for dynamic optimization models with unobserved shocks and deterministic accumulation of the observed state variables. Investment models are an important example of such models. Our pairwise-difference approach exploits two common features of these models: (1) the monotonicity of the agent's decision (policy) function in the shocks, conditional on the observed state variables; and (2) the state-contingent nature of optimal decision making which implies that, conditional on the observed state variables, the variation in observed choices across agents must be due to randomness in the shocks across agents. We illustrate our procedure by estimating a dynamic trading model for the milk production quota market in Ontario, Canada.

DOI
10.1111/j.1467-937x.2009.00576.x
Volume
77
Issue
1
Pages
273-304
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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