Econometrics HT 18

Chapter 23 : Heteroscedasticity

By Lund University

When the variance of the error term no longer is constant.

Heteroscedasticity

Heteroscedasticity means that the variance of the error term is different between different observations and this is very common in economics. We begin by looking at tests helping us figuring out if our data is homoscedastic or heteroscedasticity. If we find that we have heteroscedasticity, then the standard errors derived by assuming homoscedasticity are no longer valid. Instead, we can use robust standard errors. Also, with heteroscedasticity OLS is no longer efficient. In this case, the efficient estimator is called the weighted least squares.

Heteroscedasticity

Test for heteroscedasticity using squared residuals

Robust standard errors with heteroscedasticity

Weighted least squares