Weighted Profile Least Squares Estimation for a Panel Data Varying-Coefficient Partially Linear Model

This paper is concerned with inference of panel data varying-coefficient partially linear models with a one-way error structure. The model is a natural extension of the well-known panel data linear model （due to Baltagi 1995） to the setting of semiparametric regressions. The authors propose a weighted profile least squares estimator （WPLSE） and a weighted local polynomial estimator （WLPE） for the parametric and nonparametric components, respectively. It is shown that the WPLSE is asymptotically more efficient than the usual profile least squares estimator （PLSE）, and that the WLPE is also asymptotically more efficient than the usual local polynomial estimator （LPE）. The latter is an interesting result. According to Ruckstuhl, Welsh and Carroll （2000） and Lin and Carroll （2000）, ignoring the correlation structure entirely and ＂pretending＂ that the data are really independent will result in more efficient estimators when estimating nonparametric regression with longitudinal or panel data. The result in this paper shows that this is not true when the design points of the nonparametric component have a closeness property within groups. The asymptotic properties of the proposed weighted estimators are derived. In addition, a block bootstrap test is proposed for the goodness of fit of models, which can accommodate the correlations within groups illustrate the finite sample performances of the Some simulation studies are conducted to proposed procedures.

Quantile residual lifetime for left-truncated and right-censored data

This article proposes a simple nonparametric estimator of quantile residual lifetime function under left-truncated and right-censored data. The asymptotic consistency and normality of this estimator are proved and the variance expression is calculated. Two bootstrap procedures are employed in the simulation study,where the latter bootstrap from Zeng and Lin(2008) is 4000 times faster than the former naive one, and the numerical results in both methods show that our estimating approach works well. A real data example is used to illustrate its application.