The PANEL Procedure

Parks Method (Autoregressive Model)

Parks (1967) considered the first-order autoregressive model in which the random errors ${u_{it} }$, ${i=1, 2, {\ldots }, \mi {N} }$, and ${t=1, 2, {\ldots }, \mi {T} }$ have the structure

$\displaystyle  {E}( u^{2}_{it}) $
$\displaystyle = $
$\displaystyle {\sigma }_{ii} \textrm{(heteroscedasticity)}  $
$\displaystyle {E}(u_{it}u_{jt}) $
$\displaystyle = $
$\displaystyle {\sigma }_{ij} \textrm{(contemporaneously ~  correlated)}  $
$\displaystyle u_{it} $
$\displaystyle = $
$\displaystyle  {\rho }_{i} u_{i,t-1}+ {\epsilon }_{it} \textrm{(autoregression)} \nonumber  $

where

$\displaystyle  {E}( {\epsilon }_{it}) $
$\displaystyle = $
$\displaystyle 0  $
$\displaystyle {E}( u_{i,t-1} {\epsilon }_{jt}) $
$\displaystyle = $
$\displaystyle 0  $
$\displaystyle {E}( {\epsilon }_{it} {\epsilon }_{jt}) $
$\displaystyle = $
$\displaystyle {\phi }_{ij}  $
$\displaystyle {E}( {\epsilon }_{it} {\epsilon }_{js}) $
$\displaystyle = $
$\displaystyle 0 (s{\neq }t)  $
$\displaystyle {E}( u_{i0}) $
$\displaystyle = $
$\displaystyle 0  $
$\displaystyle {E}( u_{i0} u_{j0}) $
$\displaystyle = $
$\displaystyle  {\sigma }_{ij}={\phi }_{ij}/(1- {\rho }_{i} {\rho }_{j}) \nonumber  $

The model assumed is first-order autoregressive with contemporaneous correlation between cross sections. In this model, the covariance matrix for the vector of random errors u can be expressed as

$\displaystyle  {E}( \Strong{uu} ^{})=\Strong{V} = \left[\begin{matrix}  {\sigma }_{11}P_{11}   &  {\sigma }_{12}P_{12}   &  {\ldots }   &  {\sigma }_{1N}P_{1N}   \\ {\sigma }_{21}P_{21}   &  {\sigma }_{22}P_{22}   &  {\ldots }   &  {\sigma }_{2N}P_{2N}   \\ {\vdots }   &  {\vdots }   &  {\vdots }   &  {\vdots }   \\ {\sigma }_{N1}P_{N1}   &  {\sigma }_{N2}P_{N2}   &  {\ldots }   &  {\sigma }_{NN}P_{NN}   \\ \end{matrix} \nonumber \right]  $

where

$\displaystyle  P_{ij}= \left[\begin{matrix}  1   &  {\rho }_{j}   &  {\rho }_{j}^{2}   &  {\ldots }   &  {\rho }^{T-1}_{j}   \\ {\rho }_{i}   &  1   &  {\rho }_{j}   &  {\ldots }   &  {\rho }^{T-2}_{j}   \\ {\rho }_{i}^{2}   &  {\rho }_{i}   &  1   &  {\ldots }   &  {\rho }^{T-3}_{j}   \\ {\vdots }   &  {\vdots }   &  {\vdots }   &  {\vdots }   &  {\vdots }   \\ {\rho }^{T-1}_{i}   &  {\rho }^{T-2}_{i}   &  {\rho }^{T-3}_{i}   &  {\ldots }   &  1   \\ \end{matrix} \nonumber \right]  $

The matrix V is estimated by a two-stage procedure, and $\bbeta $ is then estimated by generalized least squares. The first step in estimating V involves the use of ordinary least squares to estimate $\bbeta $ and obtain the fitted residuals, as follows:

\[  \hat{\mb {u}} =\mb {y}-\mb {X} \hat{\bbeta }_{OLS}  \]

A consistent estimator of the first-order autoregressive parameter is then obtained in the usual manner, as follows:

$\displaystyle  \hat{\rho }_{i}= \left(\sum _{t=2}^{T} \hat{u}_{it} \hat{u}_{i,t-1}\right) ~ \bigg/~  \left(\sum _{t=2}^{T}{\hat{u}^{2}_{i,t-1}}\right) i=1, 2, {\ldots }, \emph{N} \nonumber  $

Finally, the autoregressive characteristic of the data is removed (asymptotically) by the usual transformation of taking weighted differences. That is, for ${i=1,2,{\ldots },\mi {N} }$,

\[  y_{i1}\sqrt {1- \hat{\rho }^{2}_{i}}= \sum _{k=1}^{p}{X_{i1k}\mb {{\bbeta }}_{k}} \sqrt {1- \hat{\rho }^{2}_{i}} +u_{i1}\sqrt {1- \hat{\rho }^{2}_{i}}  \]
\[  y_{it}- \hat{\rho }_{i} y_{i,t-1} =\sum _{k=1}^{p}{( X_{itk}- \hat{\rho }_{i} \mb {X} _{i,t-1,k}) {\bbeta }_{k}} + u_{it}- \hat{\rho }_{i} u_{i,t-1} t=2,{\ldots },\mi {T}  \]

which is written

\[  y^{\ast }_{it}= \sum _{k=1}^{p}{X^{\ast }_{itk} {\bbeta }_{k}}+ u^{\ast }_{it} \; \;  i=1, 2, {\ldots }, \mi {N} ; \; \;  t=1, 2, {\ldots }, \mi {T}  \]

Notice that the transformed model has not lost any observations (Seely and Zyskind 1971).

The second step in estimating the covariance matrix V is applying ordinary least squares to the preceding transformed model, obtaining

\[  \hat{\mb {u}} ^{\ast }= \mb {y} ^{\ast }- \mb {X} ^{\ast } {\bbeta }^{\ast }_{OLS}  \]

from which the consistent estimator of ${\sigma }$$_{ij}$ is calculated as follows:

\[  s_{ij}=\frac{\hat{\phi }_{ij}}{(1- \hat{\rho }_{i} \hat{\rho }_{j}) }  \]

where

\[  \hat{\phi }_{ij}=\frac{1}{(\mi {T} -p)} \sum _{t=1}^{T} \hat{u}^{\ast }_{it} \hat{u}^{\ast }_{jt}  \]

Estimated generalized least squares (EGLS) then proceeds in the usual manner,

\[  \hat{\bbeta }_{P}= ({\mb {X} ’}\hat{\mb {V}} ^{-1}\mb {X} )^{-1} {\mb {X} ’}\hat{\mb {V}} ^{-1}\mb {y}  \]

where $\hat{\mb {V}}$ is the derived consistent estimator of V. For computational purposes, ${\hat{\bbeta }_{P}}$ is obtained directly from the transformed model,

\[  \hat{\bbeta }_{P}= ({\mb {X} ^{\ast }}(\hat{\Phi }^{-1}{\otimes }I_{T}) \mb {X} ^{\ast })^{-1}{\mb {X} ^{\ast }} (\hat{\Phi }^{-1}{\otimes }I_{T}) \mb {y} ^{\ast }  \]

where ${\hat{\Phi }= [\hat{\phi }_{ij}]_{i,j=1,{\ldots },N} }$.

The preceding procedure is equivalent to Zellner’s two-stage methodology applied to the transformed model (Zellner 1962).

Parks demonstrates that this estimator is consistent and asymptotically, normally distributed with

\[  \mr {Var}(\hat{\bbeta }_{P})= ({\mb {X} ’}\mb {V} ^{-1}\mb {X} )^{-1}  \]

Standard Corrections

For the PARKS option, the first-order autocorrelation coefficient must be estimated for each cross section. Let ${\rho }$ be the ${\mi {N} \times 1}$ vector of true parameters and ${R=(r_{1},{\ldots },r_{N}{)’} }$ be the corresponding vector of estimates. Then, to ensure that only range-preserving estimates are used in PROC PANEL, the following modification for R is made:

\[  r_{i} = \begin{cases}  r_{i} &  \mr {if} \hspace{.1 in}{|r_{i}|}<1 \\ \mr {max}(.95, \mr {rmax}) &  \mr {if}\hspace{.1 in} r_{i}{\ge }1 \\ \mr {min}(-.95, \mr {rmin}) &  \mr {if}\hspace{.1 in} r_{i}{\le }-1 \end{cases}  \]

where

\[  \mr {rmax} = \begin{cases}  0 &  \mr {if}\hspace{.1 in} r_{i} < 0 \hspace{.1 in}\mr {or}\hspace{.1 in} r_{i}{\ge }1\hspace{.1 in} \forall i \\ \mathop {\mr {max}}\limits _{j} [ r_{j} : 0 {\le } r_{j} < 1 ] &  \mr {otherwise} \end{cases}  \]

and

\[  \mr {rmin }= \begin{cases}  0 &  \mr {if} \hspace{.1 in}r_{i} > 0 \hspace{.1 in}\mr {or}\hspace{.1 in} r_{i}{\le }-1\hspace{.1 in} \forall i \\ \mathop {\mr {max}}\limits _{j} [ r_{j} : -1 < r_{j} {\le } 0 ] &  \mr {otherwise} \end{cases}  \]

Whenever this correction is made, a warning message is printed.