Calibrating longitudinal models of residential mobility and migration: an assessment of a non-parametric marginal likelihood approach.

"This paper discusses the problems of controlling for omitted variables in estimating the structural parameters of longitudinal models and focuses upon an assessment of a non-parametric marginal maximum likelihood approach suggested by the results of Laird.... The approach is shown to be statistically valid for a plausible discrete-time model of the incidence of residential or migration moves, at least for data in which no household moves in every time period. Empirical evaluation with two large [U.S.] datasets on residential mobility indicates that the approach is also computationally feasible and provides a promising alternative to more conventional methods for controlling for omitted variables." excerpt