Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
Research Institute of Industrial Economics

No 961: Using Lasso-Type Penalties to Model Time-Varying Covariate Effects in Panel Data Regressions – A Novel Approach Illustrated by the ‘Death of Distance’ in International Trade

Wolfgang Hess, Maria Persson (), Stephanie Rubenbauer and Jan Gertheiss
Additional contact information
Wolfgang Hess: Lund University, Postal: Department of Economics and Centre for Economic Demography, Lund, Sweden
Maria Persson: Lund University, Postal: Department of Economics, Lund, Sweden
Stephanie Rubenbauer: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Postal: Department of Statistics, Münich, Germany
Jan Gertheiss: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Postal: Department of Statistics, Münich, Germany

Abstract: When analyzing panel data using regression models, it is often reasonable to allow for time-varying covariate effects. We propose a novel approach to modelling timevarying coefficients in panel data regressions, which is based on penalized regression techniques. To illustrate the usefulness of this approach, we revisit the well-known empirical puzzle of the ‘death of distance’ in international trade. We find significant differences between results obtained with the proposed estimator and those obtained with ‘traditional’ methods. The proposed method can also be used for model selection, and to allow covariate effects to vary over other dimensions than time.

Keywords: Penalized Regression; Lasso-type Penalties; Varying Coefficient Models; Gravity; Death of Distance; Missing Globalization Puzzle

JEL-codes: C23; C52; F10

Language: English

29 pages, March 13, 2013

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