Skip to main content
Discussion Paper

A Stopping Rule for the Computation of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators

To obtain consistency and asymptotic normality, a generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator typically is defined to be an approximate global minimizer of a GMM criterion function. To compute such an estimator, however, can be problematic because of the difficulty of global optimization. In consequence, practitioners usually ignore the problem and take the GMM estimator to be the result of a local optimization algorithm. This yields an estimator that is not necessarily consistent and asymptotically normal.