Asymptotic distributions of robust shape matrices and scales

It has been frequently observed in the literature that many multivariate statistical methods require the covariance or dispersion matrix Σ of an elliptical distribution only up to some scaling constant. If the topic of interest is not the scale but only the shape of the elliptical distribution, it is not meaningful to focus on the asymptotic distribution of an estimator for Σ or another matrix Γ∝Σ. In the present work, robust estimators for the shape matrix and the associated scale are investigated. Explicit expressions for their joint asymptotic distributions are derived. It turns out that if the joint asymptotic distribution is normal, the estimators presented are asymptotically independent for one and only one specific choice of the scale function. If it is non-normal (this holds for example if the estimators for the shape matrix and scale are based on the minimum volume ellipsoid estimator) only the scale function presented leads to asymptotically uncorrelated estimators. This is a generalization of a result obtained by Paindaveine [D. Paindaveine, A canonical definition of shape, Statistics and Probability Letters 78 (2008) 2240-2247] in the context of local asymptotic normality theory.     

Estimates of MM type for the multivariate linear model

We propose a class of robust estimates for multivariate linear models. Based on the approach of MM-estimation (Yohai 1987, [24]), we estimate the regression coefficients and the covariance matrix of the errors simultaneously. These estimates have both a high breakdown point and high asymptotic efficiency under Gaussian errors. We prove consistency and asymptotic normality assuming errors with an elliptical distribution. We describe an iterative algorithm for the numerical calculation of these estimates. The advantages of the proposed estimates over their competitors are demonstrated through both simulated and real data.     

A new projection estimate for multivariate location with minimax bias

The maximum asymptotic bias of an estimator is a global robustness measure of its performance. The projection median estimator for multivariate location shows a remarkable behavior regarding asymptotic bias. In this paper we consider a modification of the projection median estimator which renders an estimate with better bias performance for point mass contaminations (the worst situation for the projection median estimator). Moreover, it achieves the lowest bound for an equivariant estimate for point mass contaminations.     

The multivariate least-trimmed squares estimator

In this paper we introduce the least-trimmed squares estimator for multivariate regression. We give three equivalent formulations of the estimator and obtain its breakdown point. A fast algorithm for its computation is proposed. We prove Fisher-consistency at the multivariate regression model with elliptically symmetric error distribution and derive the influence function. Simulations investigate the finite-sample efficiency and robustness of the estimator. To increase the efficiency of the estimator, we also consider a one-step reweighted estimator.     

Asymptotic properties of conditional maximum likelihood estimator in a certain exponential model

The conditional maximum likelihood estimator is suggested as an alternative to the maximum likelihood estimator and is favorable for an estimator of a dispersion parameter in the normal distribution, the inverse-Gaussian distribution, and so on. However, it is not clear whether the conditional maximum likelihood estimator is asymptotically efficient in general. Consider the case where it is asymptotically efficient and its asymptotic covariance depends only on an objective parameter in an exponential model. This remand implies that the exponential model possesses a certain parallel foliation. In this situation, this paper investigates asymptotic properties of the conditional maximum likelihood estimator and compares the conditional maximum likelihood estimator with the maximum likelihood estimator. We see that the bias of the former is more robust than that of the latter and that two estimators are very close, especially in the sense of bias-corrected version. The mean Pythagorean relation is also discussed.     

Methods for improvement in estimation of a normal mean matrix

This paper is concerned with the problem of estimating a matrix of means in multivariate normal distributions with an unknown covariance matrix under invariant quadratic loss. It is first shown that the modified Efron-Morris estimator is characterized as a certain empirical Bayes estimator. This estimator modifies the crude Efron-Morris estimator by adding a scalar shrinkage term. It is next shown that the idea of this modification provides a general method for improvement of estimators, which results in the further improvement on several minimax estimators. As a new method for improvement, an adaptive combination of the modified Stein and the James-Stein estimators is also proposed and is shown to be minimax. Through Monte Carlo studies of the risk behaviors, it is numerically shown that the proposed, combined estimator inherits the nice risk properties of both individual estimators and thus it has a very favorable risk behavior in a small sample case. Finally, the application to a two-way layout MANOVA model with interactions is discussed.     

On Mardia's and Song's measures of kurtosis in elliptical distributions

The main objective of this paper is the calculation and the comparative study of two general measures of multivariate kurtosis, namely Mardia's measure β_2,p and Song's measure S(f). In this context, general formulas for the said measures are derived for the broad family of the elliptically contoured symmetric distributions and also for specific members of this family, like the multivariate t-distribution, the multivariate Pearson type II, the multivariate Pearson type VII, the multivariate symmetric Kotz type distribution and the uniform distribution in the unit sphere. Analytic expressions for computing Shannon and Rényi entropies are obtained under the elliptic family. The behaviour of Mardia's and Song's measures, their similarities and differences, possible interpretations and uses in practice are investigated by comparing them in specific members of the elliptic family of multivariate distributions. An empirical estimator of Song's measure is moreover proposed and its asymptotic distribution is investigated under the elliptic family of multivariate distributions.     

A robust estimator of multivariate location based on projection

This paper presents an estimator of location vector based on one-dimensional projection of high dimensional data. The properties of the new estimator including consistency ,asymptotic normality and robustness are discussed. It is proved that the estimator is not only stronglyconsistent and asymptotically normal but also with a breakdown point 1/2 and a bounded influence function.     

Simple and efficient improvements of multivariate local linear regression

This paper studies improvements of multivariate local linear regression. Two intuitively appealing variance reduction techniques are proposed. They both yield estimators that retain the same asymptotic conditional bias as the multivariate local linear estimator and have smaller asymptotic conditional variances. The estimators are further examined in aspects of bandwidth selection, asymptotic relative efficiency and implementation. Their asymptotic relative efficiencies with respect to the multivariate local linear estimator are very attractive and increase exponentially as the number of covariates increases. Data-driven bandwidth selection procedures for the new estimators are straightforward given those for local linear regression. Since the proposed estimators each has a simple form, implementation is easy and requires much less or about the same amount of effort. In addition, boundary corrections are automatic as in the usual multivariate local linear regression.     

A test for elliptical symmetry

This paper presents a statistic for testing the hypothesis of elliptical symmetry. The statistic also provides a specialized test of multivariate normality. We obtain the asymptotic distribution of this statistic under the null hypothesis of multivariate normality, and give a bootstrapping procedure for approximating the null distribution of the statistic under an arbitrary elliptically symmetric distribution. We present simulation results to examine the accuracy of the asymptotic distribution and the performance of the bootstrapping procedure. Finally, for selected alternatives, we compare the power of our test statistic with that of recently proposed tests for elliptical symmetry given by Manzotti et al. [A statistic for testing the null hypothesis of elliptical symmetry, J. Multivariate Anal. 81 (2002) 274-285] and Schott [Testing for elliptical symmetry in covariance-matrix-based analyses, Statist. Probab. Lett. 60 (2002) 395-404], and with that of the well known tests for multivariate normality of Mardia [Measures of multivariate skewness and kurtosis with applications, Biometrika 57 (1970) 519-530] and Baringhaus and Henze [A consistent test for multivariate normality based on the empirical characteristic function, Metrika 35 (1988) 339-348].     

On a robust and efficient maximum depth estimator

The best breakdown point robustness is one of the most outstanding features of the univariate median. For this robustness property, the median, however, has to pay the price of a low efficiency at normal and other light-tailed models. Affine equivariant multivariate analogues of the univariate median with high breakdown points were constructed in the past two decades. For the high breakdown robustness, most of them also have to sacrifice their efficiency at normal and other models, nevertheless. The affine equivariant maximum depth estimator proposed and studied in this paper turns out to be an exception. Like the univariate median, it also possesses a highest breakdown point among all its multivariate competitors. Unlike the univariate median, it is also highly efficient relative to the sample mean at normal and various other distributions, overcoming the vital low-efficiency shortcoming of the univariate and other multivariate generalized medians. The paper also studies the asymptotics of the estimator and establishes its limit distribution without symmetry and other strong assumptions that are typically imposed on the underlying distribution. This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of USA (Grant Nos. DMS-0071976, DMS-0234078) and by the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics Third Period Construction Item Funds of the 211 Project (Grant No. 211D3T06)     

Cramér-von Mises type estimation of the regression parameter: The rank analogue

A point estimator based on minimization of the rank analogue of the Cramér-von Mises statistic is proposed for the slope parameter β in the simple linear regression model. The asymptotic distribution of the estimator is derived and its variance is compared to the asymptotic variances of several common estimators for β at various underlying distributions.     

The influence function of the Stahel–Donoho estimator of multivariate location and scatter

This article derives the influence function of the Stahel–Donoho estimator of multivariate location and scatter for elliptical distributions. Local robustness and asymptotic relative efficiency are studied. The expressions obtained for the influence functions coincide with those of one-step reweighted estimators.     

A semiparametric density estimator based on elliptical distributions

In the paper we study a semiparametric density estimation method based on the model of an elliptical distribution. The method considered here shows a way to overcome problems arising from the curse of dimensionality. The optimal rate of the uniform strong convergence of the estimator under consideration coincides with the optimal rate for the usual one-dimensional kernel density estimator except in a neighbourhood of the mean. Therefore the optimal rate does not depend on the dimension. Moreover, asymptotic normality of the estimator is proved.     

Symmetrised M-estimators of multivariate scatter

In this paper we introduce a family of symmetrised M-estimators of multivariate scatter. These are defined to be M-estimators only computed on pairwise differences of the observed multivariate data. Symmetrised Huber's M-estimator and Dümbgen's estimator serve as our examples. The influence functions of the symmetrised M-functionals are derived and the limiting distributions of the estimators are discussed in the multivariate elliptical case to consider the robustness and efficiency properties of estimators. The symmetrised M-estimators have the important independence property; they can therefore be used to find the independent components in the independent component analysis (ICA).     

Nonparametric estimation of an extreme-value copula in arbitrary dimensions

Inference on an extreme-value copula usually proceeds via its Pickands dependence function, which is a convex function on the unit simplex satisfying certain inequality constraints. In the setting of an i.i.d. random sample from a multivariate distribution with known margins and an unknown extreme-value copula, an extension of the Capéraà-Fougères-Genest estimator was introduced by D. Zhang, M. T. Wells and L. Peng [Nonparametric estimation of the dependence function for a multivariate extreme-value distribution, Journal of Multivariate Analysis 99 (4) (2008) 577-588]. The joint asymptotic distribution of the estimator as a random function on the simplex was not provided. Moreover, implementation of the estimator requires the choice of a number of weight functions on the simplex, the issue of their optimal selection being left unresolved.A new, simplified representation of the CFG-estimator combined with standard empirical process theory provides the means to uncover its asymptotic distribution in the space of continuous, real-valued functions on the simplex. Moreover, the ordinary least-squares estimator of the intercept in a certain linear regression model provides an adaptive version of the CFG-estimator whose asymptotic behavior is the same as if the variance-minimizing weight functions were used. As illustrated in a simulation study, the gain in efficiency can be quite sizable.     

Minimax Bayes estimators of a multivariate normal mean

In three or more dimensions it is well known that the usual point estimator for the mean of a multivariate normal distribution is minimax but not admissible with respect to squared Euclidean distance loss. This paper gives sufficient conditions on the prior distribution under which the Bayes estimator has strictly lower risk than the usual estimator. Examples are given for which the posterior density is useful in the formation of confidence sets.     

Multivariate generalized S-estimators

In this paper we introduce generalized S-estimators for the multivariate regression model. This class of estimators combines high robustness and high efficiency. They are defined by minimizing the determinant of a robust estimator of the scatter matrix of differences of residuals. In the special case of a multivariate location model, the generalized S-estimator has the important independence property, and can be used for high breakdown estimation in independent component analysis. Robustness properties of the estimators are investigated by deriving their breakdown point and the influence function. We also study the efficiency of the estimators, both asymptotically and at finite samples. To obtain inference for the regression parameters, we discuss the fast and robust bootstrap for multivariate generalized S-estimators. The method is illustrated on a real data example.     

Efficient and robust scale estimation for trended time series

This paper presents a new method for robust online variability extraction in time series. The proposed estimator is simultaneously highly robust and efficient. We derive its breakdown point, influence function, and asymptotic variance and study the finite sample properties in a simulation study.     

Robust weighted orthogonal regression in the errors-in-variables model

This paper focuses on robust estimation in the structural errors-in-variables (EV) model. A new class of robust estimators, called weighted orthogonal regression estimators, is introduced. Robust estimators of the parameters of the EV model are simply derived from robust estimators of multivariate location and scatter such as the M-estimators, the S-estimators and the MCD estimator. The influence functions of the proposed estimators are calculated and shown to be bounded. Moreover, we derive the asymptotic distributions of the estimators and illustrate the results on simulated examples and on a real-data set.