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A unified model-implied instrumental variable approach for structural equation modeling with mixed variables

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Shaobo Jin*
Affiliation:
Uppsala University
Fan Yang-Wallentin
Affiliation:
Uppsala University
Kenneth A. Bollen
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
*
Correspondence should be made to Shaobo Jin, Department of statistics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. Email: shaobo.jin@statistik.uu.se
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Abstract

The model-implied instrumental variable (MIIV) estimator is an equation-by-equation estimator of structural equation models that is more robust to structural misspecifications than full information estimators. Previous studies have concentrated on endogenous variables that are all continuous (MIIV-2SLS) or all ordinal. We develop a unified MIIV approach that applies to a mixture of binary, ordinal, censored, or continuous endogenous observed variables. We include estimates of factor loadings, regression coefficients, variances, and covariances along with their asymptotic standard errors. In addition, we create new goodness of fit tests of the model and overidentification tests of single equations. Our simulation study shows that the proposed MIIV approach is more robust to structural misspecifications than diagonally weighted least squares (DWLS) and that both the goodness of fit model tests and the overidentification equations tests can detect structural misspecifications. We also find that the bias in asymptotic standard errors for the MIIV estimators of factor loadings and regression coefficients are often lower than the DWLS ones, though the differences are small in large samples. Our analysis shows that scaling indicators with low reliability can adversely affect the MIIV estimators. Also, using a small subset of MIIVs reduces small sample bias of coefficient estimates, but can lower the power of overidentification tests of equations.

Information

Type
Theory and Methods (T&M)
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Copyright
Copyright © 2021 The Author(s)
Figure 0

Figure 1. Path diagram of the latent regression part of the SEM model in the simulation study. The dashed line is present in the true model but is omitted in the misspecified model. The population values are the standardized coefficients.

Figure 1

Figure 2. Shea (1997)’s R2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$R^2$$\end{document} for each equation in the population model.

Figure 2

Table 1. Percentage of converged solutions with positive definite covariance matrices.

Figure 3

Figure 3. Averaged absolute value of the relative bias of the parameter estimators when the model is correctly specified. Dashed lines at 0 and 5 percent relative bias.

Figure 4

Figure 4. Averaged absolute value of the relative bias of the standard error estimators when the model is correctly specified. Note: The MIIV standard errors of Λ^\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\hat{{\varvec{\Lambda }}}$$\end{document} and B^\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\hat{{\varvec{B}}}$$\end{document} are computed from Eq. 9 or 12. The MIIV standard errors of Ψ^\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\hat{{\varvec{\Psi }}}$$\end{document} and Θ^\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\hat{{\varvec{\Theta }}}$$\end{document} are computed from Eq. 15, hence MIIV Eq. 9 is the same as MIIV Eq.  12.

Figure 5

Figure 5. Percentages of rejection of the goodness-of-fit tests when the model is correctly specified. The significance level is 0.05 (dashed line).

Figure 6

Figure 6. Averaged absolute value of the relative bias of the parameter estimators when the model is misspecified.

Figure 7

Figure 7. Averaged absolute value of the relative bias of the standard error estimators when the model is misspecified and the R2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$R^2$$\end{document} of the scaling indicator is high. Note: The MIIV standard errors of Λ^\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\hat{{\varvec{\Lambda }}}$$\end{document} and B^\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\hat{{\varvec{B}}}$$\end{document} are computed from equation (9) or (12). The MIIV standard errors of Ψ^\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\hat{{\varvec{\Psi }}}$$\end{document} and Θ^\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\hat{{\varvec{\Theta }}}$$\end{document} are computed from Eq. 15, hence MIIVEq. 9 is the same as MIIV(Eq. 12).

Figure 8

Figure 8. Percentages of rejection of the goodness-of-fit tests when the model is misspecified. The significance level is 0.05.

Figure 9

Figure 9. Overidentification test for the η3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\eta _3$$\end{document} (j=11\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$j=11$$\end{document}), η4\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\eta _4$$\end{document} (j=12\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$j=12$$\end{document}), and η5\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\eta _5$$\end{document} (j=13\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$j=13$$\end{document}) equations in the latent variable model at the significance level 0.05.

Figure 10

Figure 10. Path diagonal of the the Reisenzein (1986) dataset.

Figure 11

Table 2. Goodness-of-fit tests of the Reisenzein (1986) data set.

Figure 12

Table 3. Overidentification tests of the Reisenzein (1986) data set without the cross-loading s3∗\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$s_3^*$$\end{document} on Help. The significant tests after the Bonferroni correction is boldfaced.

Figure 13

Table 4. Point estimates and the standard errors of the Reisenzein (1986) dataset with the cross-loading s3∗\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$s_3^*$$\end{document} on Help. For MIIV, the standard error of θ1^\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\hat{{\varvec{\theta }}_1}$$\end{document} are computed from (9).

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