ABSTRACT
The statistical models considered in this book are fairly complex, going beyond merely description or exploratory analysis of data. A basic idea is to construct structural statistical models purporting to represent the main features of the ‘data generating mechanism’; the empirical process having generated the observed data. In this setting the issues of identification and equivalence of statistical models become fundamental, since the structural parameters of scientific interest differ from the reduced form parameters. Broadly speaking, identification and equivalence concern the prospects of making inferences regarding the structural model based on the reduced form distribution for the observed variables.
