Statistical inference in a panel data semiparametric regression model with serially correlated errors

We consider a panel data semiparametric partially linear regression model with an unknown vector β of regression coefficients, an unknown nonparametric function g(·) for nonlinear component, and unobservable serially correlated errors. The correlated errors are modeled by a vector autoregressive process which involves a constant intraclass correlation. Applying the pilot estimators of β and g(·), we construct estimators of the autoregressive coefficients, the intraclass correlation and the error variance, and investigate their asymptotic properties. Fitting the error structure results in a new semiparametric two-step estimator of β, which is shown to be asymptotically more efficient than the usual semiparametric least squares estimator in terms of asymptotic covariance matrix. Asymptotic normality of this new estimator is established, and a consistent estimator of its asymptotic covariance matrix is presented. Furthermore, a corresponding estimator of g(·) is also provided. These results can be used to make asymptotically efficient statistical inference. Some simulation studies are conducted to illustrate the finite sample performances of these proposed estimators.     

纵向数据边际模型非参数光滑方法的比较

对于纵向数据边际模型的均值函数, 有很多非参数估计方法, 其中回归样条, 光滑样条, 似乎不相关(SUR)核估计等方法在工作协方差阵正确指定时具有最小的渐近方差. 回归样条的渐近偏差与工作协方差阵无关, 而SUR核估计和光滑样条估计的渐近偏差却依赖于工作协方差阵. 本文主要研究了回归样条, 光滑样条和SUR核估计的效率问题. 通过模拟比较发现回归样条估计的表现比较稳定, 在大多数情况下比光滑样条估计和SUR核估计的效率高.     

The Strong Mixing Data-Based Semiparametric Smooth Transition Regression Model

In this paper, we generalize the semiparametric smooth transition regression model proposed by Wang (2012a), to adapt for the strictly stationary strong mixing data and strong mixing data with deterministic trends. The unknown bounded smooth function embedded in the smooth transition function is estimated by series estimator, the consistency and asymptotic normality properties of estimators are proved employing nonlinear least square regression theory and series estimator approach. Variance matrix estimation and hypothesis testing problems are also discussed based on estimated standard errors. The new model is then used to study the annually inflation rates of China.     

Testing inference in heteroskedastic fixed effects models

This paper considers the issue of performing testing inference in fixed effects panel data models under heteroskedasticity of unknown form. We use numerical integration to compute the exact null distributions of different quasi-t test statistics and compare them to their limiting counterpart. The test statistics use different heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors. Our results reveal that the asymptotic approximation is usually poor in small samples when the test statistic is based on the covariance matrix estimator proposed by Arellano (1987). The quality of the approximation is greatly increased when the standard error is obtained using other heteroskedasticity-consistent estimators, most notably the CHC4 estimator. Our results also reveal that the performance of Arellano’s test improves considerably when standard errors are computed using restricted residuals.     

Use of prior information in the consistent estimation of regression coefficients in measurement error models

A multivariate ultrastructural measurement error model is considered and it is assumed that some prior information is available in the form of exact linear restrictions on regression coefficients. Using the prior information along with the additional knowledge of covariance matrix of measurement errors associated with explanatory vector and reliability matrix, we have proposed three methodologies to construct the consistent estimators which also satisfy the given linear restrictions. Asymptotic distribution of these estimators is derived when measurement errors and random error component are not necessarily normally distributed. Dominance conditions for the superiority of one estimator over the other under the criterion of Löwner ordering are obtained for each case of the additional information. Some conditions are also proposed under which the use of a particular type of information will give a more efficient estimator.     

Truncated Estimator of Asymptotic Covariance Matrix in Partially Linear Models with Heteroscedastic Errors

A partially linear regression model with heteroscedastic and/or serially correlated errors is studied here. It is well known that in order to apply the semiparametric least squares estimation （SLSE） to make statistical inference a consistent estimator of the asymptotic covariance matrix is needed. The traditional residual-based estimator of the asymptotic covariance matrix is not consistent when the errors are heteroscedastic and/or serially correlated. In this paper we propose a new estimator by truncating, which is an extension of the procedure in White. This estimator is shown to be consistent when the truncating parameter converges to infinity with some rate.     

Second-order nonlinear least squares estimation

The ordinary least squares estimation is based on minimization of the squared distance of the response variable to its conditional mean given the predictor variable. We extend this method by including in the criterion function the distance of the squared response variable to its second conditional moment. It is shown that this “second-order” least squares estimator is asymptotically more efficient than the ordinary least squares estimator if the third moment of the random error is nonzero, and both estimators have the same asymptotic covariance matrix if the error distribution is symmetric. Simulation studies show that the variance reduction of the new estimator can be as high as 50% for sample sizes lower than 100. As a by-product, the joint asymptotic covariance matrix of the ordinary least squares estimators for the regression parameter and for the random error variance is also derived, which is only available in the literature for very special cases, e.g. that random error has a normal distribution. The results apply to both linear and nonlinear regression models, where the random error distributions are not necessarily known.     

一般半相依回归系统的协方差改进估计

本文讨论了由两个等阶的回归方程组成的半相依系统,运用协方差改进法获得了参数的一个迭代估计序列,并证明了它的协方差阵已知时,处处收敛到最佳线性无偏估计,同时其协方差阵在矩阵偏序意义下单调性,并且给出了当迭代次数亦趋于无穷时,保证其具有相合性的一个条件。     

回归系数的广义根方估计及其模拟

文献[1,2]中提出了回归系数的根方估计~(k),当回归自变量间存在复共线关系时,~(k)较回归系数的最小二乘估计有所改善,本文将根方估计作一拓广,得出了回归系数的广义根方估计~(K),其中K为对角阵,文中证明了广义根方估计~(K)较~(k)能更有效地改善最小二乘估计,并给出了广义根方估计的显式解,在此基础上,提出了广义根方估计的显式解和一种确定k_i的方法。     

Nonparametric regression function estimation with surrogate data and validation sampling

This paper develops estimation approaches for nonparametric regression analysis with surrogate data and validation sampling when response variables are measured with errors. Without assuming any error model structure between the true responses and the surrogate variables, a regression calibration kernel regression estimate is defined with the help of validation data. The proposed estimator is proved to be asymptotically normal and the convergence rate is also derived. A simulation study is conducted to compare the proposed estimators with the standard Nadaraya-Watson estimators with the true observations in the validation data set and the complete observations, respectively. The Nadaraya-Watson estimator with the complete observations can serve as a gold standard, even though it is practically unachievable because of the measurement errors.     

Adaptive Unified Biased Estimators of Parameters in Linear Model

To tackle multi collinearity or ill-conditioned design matrices in linear models,adaptive biasedestimators such as the time-honored Stein estimator,the ridge and the principal component estimators havebeen studied intensively.To study when a biased estimator uniformly outperforms the least squares estimator,some sufficient conditions are proposed in the literature.In this paper,we propose a unified framework toformulate a class of adaptive biased estimators.This class includes all existing biased estimators and some newones.A sufficient condition for outperforming the least squares estimator is proposed.In terms of selectingparameters in the condition,we can obtain all double-type conditions in the literature.     

线性模型参数的稳健化有偏估计

本文讨论复共线性和粗差同时存在时线性模型的参数估计问题,基于等价权原理提出了一个稳健有偏估计类（稳健压缩估计）,并且建立了稳健压缩估计的计算方法,为了满足实际问题的需要,构造了许多很有意义的稳健有偏估计,例如稳健岭估计、稳健主成分估计,稳健组合主成估计、稳健单参数主成分估计、稳健根方估计等等,最后通过一个算例表明,本文提出的稳健有偏估计具有既可克服复共线性影响又可抵抗粗差干扰的良好性质。     

Estimation and construction of confidence regions in regression models

In the present paper, linear and nonlinear regression models with a growing number of unknown parameters are considered. Conditions sufficient for the least squares estimators to be consistent are formulated. Estimates for the covariance matrix of least squares estimators, which make it possible to construct confidence regions for the regression function, are given. Translated fromStatisticheskie Metody Otsenivaniya i Proverki Gipotez, pp. 142–150, Perm, 1990.     

Improved Estimation of Parameter Matrices in a One-Sample and Two-Sample Problems

In this paper, the problems of estimating the covariance matrix in a Wishart distribution (refer as one-sample problem) and the scale matrix in a multi-variate F distribution (which arise naturally from a two-sample setting) are considered. A new class of estimators which shrink the eigenvalues towards their harmonic mean is proposed. It is shown that the new estimator dominates the best linear estimator under two scale invariant loss functions.     

Estimation of the entropy of a multivariate normal distribution

Motivated by problems in molecular biosciences wherein the evaluation of entropy of a molecular system is important for understanding its thermodynamic properties, we consider the efficient estimation of entropy of a multivariate normal distribution having unknown mean vector and covariance matrix. Based on a random sample, we discuss the problem of estimating the entropy under the quadratic loss function. The best affine equivariant estimator is obtained and, interestingly, it also turns out to be an unbiased estimator and a generalized Bayes estimator. It is established that the best affine equivariant estimator is admissible in the class of estimators that depend on the determinant of the sample covariance matrix alone. The risk improvements of the best affine equivariant estimator over the maximum likelihood estimator (an estimator commonly used in molecular sciences) are obtained numerically and are found to be substantial in higher dimensions, which is commonly the case for atomic coordinates in macromolecules such as proteins. We further establish that even the best affine equivariant estimator is inadmissible and obtain Stein-type and Brewster–Zidek-type estimators dominating it. The Brewster–Zidek-type estimator is shown to be generalized Bayes.     

Sparse Steinian Covariance Estimation

We consider a new method for sparse covariance matrix estimation which is motivated by previous results for the so-called Stein-type estimators. Stein proposed a method for regularizing the sample covariance matrix by shrinking together the eigenvalues; the amount of shrinkage is chosen to minimize an unbiased estimate of the risk (UBEOR) under the entropy loss function. The resulting estimator has been shown in simulations to yield significant risk reductions over the maximum likelihood estimator. Our method extends the UBEOR minimization problem by adding an ?₁ penalty on the entries of the estimated covariance matrix, which encourages a sparse estimate. For a multivariate Gaussian distribution, zeros in the covariance matrix correspond to marginal independences between variables. Unlike the ?₁-penalized Gaussian likelihood function, our penalized UBEOR objective is convex and can be minimized via a simple block coordinate descent procedure. We demonstrate via numerical simulations and an analysis of microarray data from breast cancer patients that our proposed method generally outperforms other methods for sparse covariance matrix estimation and can be computed efficiently even in high dimensions.     

HAC estimation and strong linearity testing in weak ARMA models

In the framework of ARMA models, we consider testing the reliability of the standard asymptotic covariance matrix (ACM) of the least-squares estimator. The standard formula for this ACM is derived under the assumption that the errors are independent and identically distributed, and is in general invalid when the errors are only uncorrelated. The test statistic is based on the difference between a conventional estimator of the ACM of the least-squares estimator of the ARMA coefficients and its robust HAC-type version. The asymptotic distribution of the HAC estimator is established under the null hypothesis of independence, and under a large class of alternatives. The asymptotic distribution of the proposed statistic is shown to be a standard χ² under the null, and a noncentral χ² under the alternatives. The choice of the HAC estimator is discussed through asymptotic power comparisons. The finite sample properties of the test are analyzed via Monte Carlo simulation.     

A fast algorithm for robust regression with penalised trimmed squares

The presence of groups containing high leverage outliers makes linear regression a difficult problem due to the masking effect. The available high breakdown estimators based on Least Trimmed Squares often do not succeed in detecting masked high leverage outliers in finite samples. An alternative to the LTS estimator, called Penalised Trimmed Squares (PTS) estimator, was introduced by the authors in Zioutas and Avramidis (2005) Acta Math Appl Sin 21:323–334, Zioutas et al. (2007) REVSTAT 5:115–136 and it appears to be less sensitive to the masking problem. This estimator is defined by a Quadratic Mixed Integer Programming (QMIP) problem, where in the objective function a penalty cost for each observation is included which serves as an upper bound on the residual error for any feasible regression line. Since the PTS does not require presetting the number of outliers to delete from the data set, it has better efficiency with respect to other estimators. However, due to the high computational complexity of the resulting QMIP problem, exact solutions for moderately large regression problems is infeasible. In this paper we further establish the theoretical properties of the PTS estimator, such as high breakdown and efficiency, and propose an approximate algorithm called Fast-PTS to compute the PTS estimator for large data sets efficiently. Extensive computational experiments on sets of benchmark instances with varying degrees of outlier contamination, indicate that the proposed algorithm performs well in identifying groups of high leverage outliers in reasonable computational time.     

具有特殊协方差结构的 SURE 模型中参数估计的若干结果

本文讨论具有特殊协方差结构似乎不相关回归方程（SURE）模型中参数的估计问题．除非另有说明,损失函数将取为二次损失和矩阵损失．本文证明了回归系数的线性可估函数的最小二乘估计是极小极大的且在矩阵损失函数下是可容许的;还分别在仿射交换群和平移群下导出了存在回归系数的线性可估函数的一致最小风险同变（UMRE）估计的充要条件,并证明了在仿射交换和二次损失下不存在协方差阵和方差的UMRE估计．