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Standard tests and con…dence sets in the moment inequality literature are not robust to model misspeci…cation in the sense that they exhibit spurious precision when the identi…ed set is empty.This paper introduces tests and con…dence sets that provide correct asymptotic inference for a pseudo-true parameter in such scenarios, and hence, do not su¤er from spurious precision.

In this paper, we investigate what can be learned about average counterfactual outcomes as well as average treatment effects when it is assumed that treatment response functions are smooth. We obtain a set of new partial identification results for both the average treatment response and the average treatment effect. In particular, we find that the monotone treatment response and monotone treatment selection bound of Manski and Pepper, 2000 can be further tightened if we impose the smoothness conditions on the treatment response. Since it is unknown in practice whether the imposed smoothness restriction is met, it is desirable to conduct a sensitivity analysis with respect to the smoothness assumption. We demonstrate how one can carry out a sensitivity analysis for the average treatment effect by varying the degrees of smoothness assumption. We illustrate our findings by reanalyzing the return to schooling example of Manski and Pepper, 2000 and also by measuring the effect of the length of job training on the labor market outcomes.

We analyse cross‐country trends in several aspects of technological progress during 1980–2011 by examining the US patent citations data. Our estimation results on patent quality and citation lags relative to the US reveal the following. The emerging Asian economies of Korea, Taiwan and China have achieved substantial catch‐up. In the case of Korea and Taiwan, progress has been made in both patent quality and citation lags. China has achieved improvement in patent quality but not in citation lag. In contrast, advanced economies of Europe and Japan have displayed steady decline in patent quality, while the US has strengthened its position.