On 30th October, the Faculty of Finance at the City University of Macau organized the Fourth Academic Salon (2024-2025) at the Taipa campus. This seminar invited Professor Felix Chan from Curtin University, Australia. His research paper titled “Modelling with Discretized Variables”. This paper deals with econometric models in which the dependent variable, some explanatory variables, or both are observed as censored interval data. This discretization often happens due to confidentiality of sensitive variables like income. Models using these variables cannot point-identify regression parameters as the conditional moments are unknown, which led the literature to use interval estimates. This paper proposes a discretization method through which the regression parameters can be point-identified while preserving data confidentiality. This paper demonstrates the asymptotic properties of the OLS estimator for the parameters in multivariate linear regressions for cross-sectional data. The theoretical findings are supported by Monte Carlo experiments and illustrated with an application to the Australian gender wage gap.

Professor Felix Chan is the Head of the School of Accounting, Economics, and Finance at Curtin University and the Associate Editor of Mathematics and Computers in Simulations. His research interests include Applied Statistics, Data Science, Econometrics, among others. He has published in the Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Econometric Theory, and others.

During this Academic Salon, Professor Chan shared his latest research results with the Faculty of Finance, broadening the research horizons of the Faculty of Finance. The Academic Salon organized by the Faculty of Finance at City University of Macau serves as a platform for exchanging academic ideas and fostering academic awareness. With finance as the main focus, we invite senior scholars/experts from academia and the financial industry to engage in research discussions on cutting-edge topics and share industry development trends, aiming to provide a fresh academic experience and thinking model for CityU students and faculty members. Through activities like the Academic Salon, we hope to offer graduate students a better academic platform, encouraging further exploration and research on academic issues.