Factor modeling for high-dimensional time series: Inference for the number of factors

This paper deals with the factor modeling for high-dimensional time series based on a dimension-reduction viewpoint. Under stationary settings, the inference is simple in the sense that both the number of factors and the factor loadings are estimated in terms of an eigenanalysis for a nonnegative definite matrix, and is therefore applicable when the dimension of time series is on the order of a few thousands. Asymptotic properties of the proposed method are investigated under two settings: (i) the sample size goes to infinity while the dimension of time series is fixed; and (ii) both the sample size and the dimension of time series go to infinity together. In particular, our estimators for zero-eigenvalues enjoy faster convergence (or slower divergence) rates, hence making the estimation for the number of factors easier. In particular, when the sample size and the dimension of time series go to infinity together, the estimators for the eigenvalues are no longer consistent. However, our estimator for the number of the factors, which is based on the ratios of the estimated eigenvalues, still works fine. Furthermore, this estimation shows the so-called blessing of dimensionality property in the sense that the performance of the estimation may improve when the dimension of time series increases. A two-step procedure is investigated when the factors are of different degrees of strength. Numerical illustration with both simulated and real data is also reported.

Estimation for Latent Factor Models for High-Dimensional Time Series

This paper deals with the dimension reduction for high-dimensional time series based on common factors. In particular we allow the dimension of time series $p$ to be as large as, or even larger than, the sample size $n$. The estimation for the factor loading matrix and the factor process itself is carried out via an eigenanalysis for a $ptimes p$ non-negative definite matrix. We show that when all the factors are strong in the sense that the norm of each column in the factor loading matrix is of the order $p^{1/2}$, the estimator for the factor loading matrix, as well as the resulting estimator for the precision matrix of the original $p$-variant time series, are weakly consistent in $L_2$-norm with the convergence rates independent of $p$. This result exhibits clearly that the `curse is canceled out by the `blessings in dimensionality. We also establish the asymptotic properties of the estimation when not all factors are strong. For the latter case, a two-step estimation procedure is preferred accordingly to the asymptotic theory. The proposed methods together with their asymptotic properties are further illustrated in a simulation study. An application to a real data set is also reported.

Sparsistency and rates of convergence in large covariance matrix estimation

This paper studies the sparsistency and rates of convergence for estimating sparse covariance and precision matrices based on penalized likelihood with nonconvex penalty functions. Here, sparsistency refers to the property that all parameters that are zero are actually estimated as zero with probability tending to one. Depending on the case of applications, sparsity priori may occur on the covariance matrix, its inverse or its Cholesky decomposition. We study these three sparsity exploration problems under a unified framework with a general penalty function. We show that the rates of convergence for these problems under the Frobenius norm are of order $(s_nlog p_n/n)^{1/2}$, where $s_n$ is the number of nonzero elements, $p_n$ is the size of the covariance matrix and $n$ is the sample size. This explicitly spells out the contribution of high-dimensionality is merely of a logarithmic factor. The conditions on the rate with which the tuning parameter $lambda_n$ goes to 0 have been made explicit and compared under different penalties. As a result, for the $L_1$-penalty, to guarantee the sparsistency and optimal rate of convergence, the number of nonzero elements should be small: $s_n=O(p_n)$ at most, among $O(p_n^2)$ parameters, for estimating sparse covariance or correlation matrix, sparse precision or inverse correlation matrix or sparse Cholesky factor, where $s_n$ is the number of the nonzero elements on the off-diagonal entries. On the other hand, using the SCAD or hard-thresholding penalty functions, there is no such a restriction.

Estimation of Large Precision Matrices Through Block Penalization

This paper focuses on exploring the sparsity of the inverse covariance matrix $bSigma^{-1}$, or the precision matrix. We form blocks of parameters based on each off-diagonal band of the Cholesky factor from its modified Cholesky decomposition, and penalize each block of parameters using the $L_2$-norm instead of individual elements. We develop a one-step estimator, and prove an oracle property which consists of a notion of block sign-consistency and asymptotic normality. In particular, provided the initial estimator of the Cholesky factor is good enough and the true Cholesky has finite number of non-zero off-diagonal bands, oracle property holds for the one-step estimator even if $p_n gg n$, and can even be as large as $log p_n = o(n)$, where the data $y$ has mean zero and tail probability $P(|y_j| > x) leq Kexp(-Cx^d)$, $d > 0$, and $p_n$ is the number of variables. We also prove an operator norm convergence result, showing the cost of dimensionality is just $log p_n$. The advantage of this method over banding by Bickel and Levina (2008) or nested LASSO by Levina emph{et al.} (2007) is that it allows for elimination of weaker signals that precede stronger ones in the Cholesky factor. A method for obtaining an initial estimator for the Cholesky factor is discussed, and a gradient projection algorithm is developed for calculating the one-step estimate. Simulation results are in favor of the newly proposed method and a set of real data is analyzed using the new procedure and the banding method.