Maximum likelihood estimation of short panel autoregressive models with flexible form of fixed effects

This paper proposes the maximum likelihood (ML) estimator for a short panel autoregressive model with a flexible form of observed factors as well as unknown interactive fixed effects. We show that the ML estimator is consistent and asymptotically normally distributed as the number of cross-sectional units increases with the number of time periods being fixed. It should be noted that this asymptotic result holds uniformly for the autoregressive coefficient less than, equal to, or greater than one, in sharp contrast to existing estimators. Monte Carlo simulation results show that the ML estimator has desirable finite sample properties.