Busemeyer and Jones (1993) and Kenny and Judd (1984) proposed methods to
include interactions of latent variables in structural equation models
(SEMs). Despite the value of these works, their methods are limited by
the required distributional assumptions, by their complexity in
implementation, and by the unknown distributions of the estimators. This
paper provides a framework for analyzing SEMs ("LISREL" models) that
include nonlinear functions of latent or a mix of latent and observed
variables in their equations. It permits such nonlinear functions in
equations that are part of latent variable models or measurement models.
I estimate the coefficient parameters with a two-stage least squares
estimator that is consistent and asymptotically normal with a known
asymptotic covariance matrix. The observed random variables can come
from nonnormal distributions. Several hypothetical cases and an
empirical example illustrate the method.
* University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill