Structural Estimation

Q: What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Structural Estimation skill fit in?

A Claude Code skill is a SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Structural Estimation is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Engineering category. Learn more at https://claudskills.com/learn/what-is-skill-md/.

Category: Engineering · Sub-category: languages · Last updated: 2026-06-09

Use whenever an analysis estimates the PRIMITIVES of an economic model rather than a reduced-form relationship — preferences/utility, costs, information/consideration, search, or conduct — or whenever the question requires a COUNTERFACTUAL the data doesn't contain (a merger, a new product, a tax, a removed friction, consumer welfare/surplus, equilibrium re-pricing). Fires for structural demand estimation (logit, random-coefficients/BLP), supply-side markup-and-cost recovery, dynamic discrete choice (Rust/CCP), entry and dynamic games, auctions, limited consideration sets, and search models — estimated by GMM/method of (simulated) moments, NLS, or maximum (simulated) likelihood. Forces the structural workflow: justify going structural over reduced form, name what identifies each parameter, PROVE the algorithm recovers known parameters via Monte Carlo before trusting real data, derive analytical gradients group-by-group when the estimator admits them, re-solve equilibrium for counterfactuals with one scenario per mechanism. Use in R, Julia, or Python even when the user just says "estimate a demand model", "simulate the merger", "recover marginal costs", "what's the welfare effect", or "fit a structural model" — a converged optimizer is not an identified model, and a clean estimation run says nothing about whether the counterfactuals are right.

What this skill does

Structural Estimation is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the languages sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/structural-estimation/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.

When to invoke it: Use whenever an analysis estimates the PRIMITIVES of an economic model rather than a reduced-form relationship — preferences/utility, costs, information/consideration, search, or conduct — or whenever the question requires a COUNTERFACTUAL the data doesn't contain (a merger, a new product, a tax, a removed friction, consumer welfare/surplus, equilibrium re-pricing). Fires for structural demand estimation (logit, random-coefficients/BLP), supply-side markup-and-cost recovery, dynamic discrete choice (Rust/CCP), entry and dynamic games, auctions, limited consideration sets, and search models — estimated by GMM/method of (simulated) moments, NLS, or maximum (simulated) likelihood.

Who uses this skill

The Structural Estimation Claude Code skill is built for software engineers, backend developers, full-stack teams, and technical leads building and maintaining production systems. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 94,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).

How to install

Free

Manual install (2 steps)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/structural-estimation
curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/structural-estimation/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/structural-estimation/SKILL.md

Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/structural-estimation/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.

Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/structural-estimation/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\structural-estimation\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.

📱 Install from your phone or desktop Telegram

Open @claudskills_bot on Telegram, tap Open Desktop App, and the desktop app installs this skill for you. Or share the bot link with a colleague — they get the same one-tap install. Learn more →

Pro

One-click install via the desktop app

The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.

Pro

For the full experience including quality scoring and one-click install features for each skill — upgrade to Pro.

See pricing → Download desktop app

Frequently asked questions

How do I install the Structural Estimation Claude Code skill?

Install via the ClaudSkills desktop app (one click) or copy SKILL.md from the source repository to ~/.claude/skills/structural-estimation/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at claudskills.com/install/.

What does the Structural Estimation skill do?

Is this skill free to install?

Yes. ClaudSkills is an open registry — every skill keeps its source repository's license, and manual install via copy is free. ClaudSkills Pro ($9/mo, $79/yr, or $149 one-time) adds one-click install via the desktop app and a multi-signal Quality Score.

When should I use the Structural Estimation skill?

Use Structural Estimation when your Claude Code task falls under the Engineering category — specifically in the languages area. Claude Code auto-discovers installed skills and invokes the right one based on the task description, so you can also ask Claude directly (e.g. "use Structural Estimation" or describe the task and let Claude pick). Browse related skills at /category/engineering/.

What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Structural Estimation skill fit in?

A Claude Code skill is a SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Structural Estimation is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Engineering category. Learn more at /learn/what-is-a-claude-skill/.

Attribution & license

Source: https://github.com/lancegui/causal-powers/blob/HEAD/skills/structural-estimation/SKILL.md
License: MIT
Author: lancegui

Cite this skill

If you reference this skill in a blog post, paper, or documentation, you can cite it as:

APA

lancegui. (2026). Structural Estimation [Claude Code skill]. ClaudSkills. https://claudskills.com/skills/structural-estimation/

BibTeX

@misc{structural-estimation-2026,
  author    = {lancegui},
  title     = {Structural Estimation [Claude Code skill]},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {ClaudSkills},
  url       = {https://claudskills.com/skills/structural-estimation/}
}

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