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Abstract We show that moment inequalities in a wide variety of economic applications have a particular linear conditional structure. We use this structure to construct uniformly valid confidence sets that remain computationally tractable even in settings with nuisance parameters. We first introduce least-favorable critical values which deliver non-conservative tests if all moments are binding. Next, we introduce a novel conditional inference approach which ensures a strong form of insensitivity to slack moments. Our recommended approach is a hybrid technique which combines desirable aspects of the least favorable and conditional methods. The hybrid approach performs well in simulations calibrated to Wollmann (2018, American Economic Review, 108, 1364–1406), with favorable power and computational time comparisons relative to existing alternatives. 

The 2018 John Bates Clark medal of the American Economic Association was awarded to Parag Pathak for his contributions to our understanding of the impacts of educational policies. Both the theory and the empirical research was notable for taking the constraints facing administrators seriously. As a result, Parag’s research led directly to educational reforms in many large U.S. cities and abroad. The leading example is Parag (and co-author’s) research on school assignment mechanisms which led many school districts to institute fairer and more efficient procedures for allocating students to schools. The institutional detail Parag learned in working on the assignment problem led to innovative empirical work on the impacts of different types of schools, most notably of charters, which was suggestive of the characteristics of both successful schools and of the types of students who gained from being enrolled in them. His recent work utilizes the data that has been generated by the new assignment rules to provide complete frameworks for the quantitative analysis of the benefits of different assignment mechanisms, and has an enlightening demonstration of those benefits in New York high schools. 

The 2018 John Bates Clark medal of the American Economic Association was awarded to Parag Pathak for his contributions to our understanding of the impacts of educational policies. Both the theory and the empirical research was notable for taking the constraints facing administrators seriously. As a result, Parag’s research led directly to educational reforms in many large U.S. cities and abroad. The leading example is Parag (and co-author’s) research on school assignment mechanisms which led many school districts to institute fairer and more efficient procedures for allocating students to schools. The institutional detail Parag learned in working on the assignment problem led to innovative empirical work on the impacts of different types of schools, most notably of charters, which was suggestive of the characteristics of both successful schools and of the types of students who gained from being enrolled in them. His recent work utilizes the data that has been generated by the new assignment rules to provide complete frameworks for the quantitative analysis of the benefits of different assignment mechanisms, and has an enlightening demonstration of those benefits in New York high schools.