Quantitative Economics: Nov, 2021, Volume 12, Issue 4

Imposing equilibrium restrictions in the estimation of dynamic discrete games

Imposing equilibrium restrictions provides substantial gains in the estimation of dynamic discrete games. Estimation algorithms imposing these restrictions have different merits and limitations. Algorithms that guarantee local convergence typically require the approximation of high‐dimensional Jacobians. Alternatively, the Nested Pseudo‐Likelihood (NPL) algorithm is a fixed‐point iterative procedure, which avoids the computation of these matrices, but—in games—may fail to converge to the consistent NPL estimator. In order to better capture the effect of iterating the NPL algorithm in finite samples, we study the asymptotic properties of this algorithm for data generating processes that are in a neighborhood of the NPL fixed‐point stability threshold. We find that there are always samples for which the algorithm fails to converge, and this introduces a selection bias. We also propose a spectral algorithm to compute the NPL estimator. This algorithm satisfies local convergence and avoids the approximation of Jacobian matrices. We present simulation evidence and an empirical application illustrating our theoretical results and the good properties of the spectral algorithm.

Dynamic discrete games nested pseudo‐likelihood fixed‐point algorithms spectral algorithms convergence convergence selection bias C13 C57 C61 C73

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March 5, 2024

Announcing the New Journal Editors

The terms of the Editors of the Econometric Society's three journals end June 30, 2025. We are pleased to announce the incoming Editors and to thank the outgoing Editors for their excellent and continuing service.

Econometrica: Since 2019, Guido Imbens has served as the 14th Editor of Econometrica. On July 1, 2025, Marina Halac will become the Editor.

Quantitative Economics: Stéphane Bonhomme has been the Editor of Quantitative Economics since 2021. His successor will be Bernard Salanié.

Theoretical Economics: The Editor of Theoretical Economics since 2021 has been Simon Board. Taking over for him in July 2025 will be Federico Echenique.

Guido, Stéphane, and Simon have been outstanding Editors. We are grateful to them for the work they have done and will continue to do, and we look forward to further congratulating them next year. We believe Marina, Bernard, and Federico will be outstanding successors and we thank them in advance for their service.

Finally, we are grateful to Larry Samuelson for chairing all three search committees, and we thank the search committee members for their hard and fruitful work:

Econometrica: Christian Dustmann, Lars Hansen, Alessandro Lizzeri, George Mailath, Ariel Pakes, Helene Rey, and Elie Tamer.

QE: Kate Ho, Michael Keane, Felix Kubler, Whitney Newey, and Frank Schorfheide.

TE: Jeff Ely, Johannes Horner, Gilat Levy, Meg Meyer, and Ran Spiegler.

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