A nonparametric test for equality of distributions with mixed categorical and continuous data

abstract

• In this paper we consider the problem of testing for equality of two density or two conditional density functions defined over mixed discrete and continuous variables. We smooth both the discrete and continuous variables, with the smoothing parameters chosen via least-squares cross-validation. The test statistics are shown to have (asymptotic) normal null distributions. However, we advocate the use of bootstrap methods in order to better approximate their null distribution in finite-sample settings and we provide asymptotic validity of the proposed bootstrap method. Simulations show that the proposed tests have better power than both conventional frequency-based tests and smoothing tests based on ad hoc smoothing parameter selection, while a demonstrative empirical application to the joint distribution of earnings and educational attainment underscores the utility of the proposed approach in mixed data settings. 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

authors

• Li, Qi

published proceedings

• JOURNAL OF ECONOMETRICS

altmetric score

• 3

author list (cited authors)

• Li, Q. i., Maasoumi, E., & Racine, J. S.

citation count

• 101

complete list of authors

• Li, Qi||Maasoumi, Esfandiar||Racine, Jeffrey S

publisher

• Elsevier  Publisher

published in

• Journal of Econometrics  Journal

keywords

• Cross-validation
• Density Testing
• Mixed Discrete And Continuous Variables
• Nonparametric Smoothing

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1016/j.jeconom.2008.10.007

start page

• 186

end page

• 200

volume

• 148

issue

• 2