Two-step Empirical Likelihood Estimation under Stratified Sampling when Aggregate Information is Available

Abstract

Empirical likelihood (EL) is appropriate to estimate moment condition models when a random sample from the target population is available. However, many economic surveys are subject to some form of stratification, in which case direct application of EL will produce inconsistent estimators. In this paper we propose a two-step EL (TSEL) estimator to deal with stratified samples in models defined by unconditional moment restrictions in presence of some aggregate information, which may consist, for example, of the mean and the variance of the variable of interest and/or the explanatory variables. A Monte Carlo simulation study reveals promising results for many versions of the TSEL estimator.