Globally Flexible Asymptotically Ideal Models

vantages that make it desirable as a basis for producer input demand and consumer product demand systems. The principal ones are (i) its ability to approximate a function over the entire range of the sample, (ii) its global flexibility, (iii) its capacity to impose regularity conditions globally rather than just locally, and (iv) its resistance to overfitting. We touch on each of these properties very briefly-they are developed in mathematical detail in the references noted--before turning to an analysis of our overall empirical experience.