Instrumental variable estimation of factor models with possibly many variables

In this paper, we consider the instrumental variables (IV) estimation of factor models. In the psychometrics literature, although the two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimator is routinely used in IV estimation of factor models, alternative estimators have been proposed in the econometrics literature. Therefore, in this paper, we compare the performance of these alternative IV estimators in the context of factor models. Monte Carlo simulation results reveal that the HLIM/HFUL estimator by Hausman et al. (2012 Hausman, J., W. K. Newey, T. Woutersen, J. C. Chao, and N. R. Swanson. 2012. Instrumental variable estimation with heteroskedasticity and many instruments. Quantitative Economics 3:211–55. Google Scholar]) outperforms the 2SLS estimator and performs best in many cases.