Forensic Econometrics: Demand Estimation When Data are Missing

Abstract

Often empirical researchers face many data constraints when estimating models of demand. These constraints can sometimes prevent adequate evaluation of policies. In this article, we discuss two such missing data problems that arise frequently: missing data on prices and missing information on the size of the potential market. We present some ways to overcome these limitations in the context of two recent research projects. Jacobi and Sovinsky (2018), which addresses how to incorporate unobserved price heterogeneity, and Hidalgo and Sovinsky (2018), which focuses on how to use modelling techniques to estimate missing market size. Our aim is to provide a starting point for thinking about ways to overcome common data issues.