IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jmvana/v179y2020ics0047259x20302207.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sparsity-regularized skewness estimation for the multivariate skew normal and multivariate skew t distributions

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Sheng
  • Zimmerman, Dale L.
  • Breheny, Patrick

Abstract

The multivariate skew normal (MSN) and multivariate skew t (MST) distributions have received considerable attention in the past two decades because of their appealing mathematical properties and their usefulness for modeling skewed data. We develop sparse regularization methodology for estimating the skewness parameters of these two distributions. This methodology facilitates skewness selection, i.e., the identification of those marginal indices of skewness, if any, that are equal to zero. Obstacles that render skewness selection infeasible for existing parameterizations of the two distributions are described, and a new parameterization that permits the circumvention of those obstacles is introduced. A penalized likelihood method for sparsity-based regularized skewness estimation using the new parameterization is proposed. Model selection consistency and the oracle property of the method are established. A simulation study demonstrates that the method is reasonably effective for skewness selection and, because of inclusion of a ridge penalty, is more effective at preventing the divergence of the shape parameter in small samples than the Q-penalty approach of Azzalini and Arellano-Valle (2013). The simulation study demonstrates further that our method may improve the estimation of all parameters of the MSN and MST distributions, not merely the skewnesses, when some of the skewnesses are zero.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Sheng & Zimmerman, Dale L. & Breheny, Patrick, 2020. "Sparsity-regularized skewness estimation for the multivariate skew normal and multivariate skew t distributions," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jmvana:v:179:y:2020:i:c:s0047259x20302207
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jmva.2020.104639
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047259X20302207
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jmva.2020.104639?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arellano-Valle, Reinaldo B. & Azzalini, Adelchi, 2013. "The centred parameterization and related quantities of the skew-t distribution," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 73-90.
    2. Nash, John C., 2014. "On Best Practice Optimization Methods in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 60(i02).
    3. Christophe Ley & Davy Paindaveine, 2010. "On Fisher information matrices and profile log-likelihood functions in generalized skew-elliptical models," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 235-250.
    4. Zhang, Yongli & Yang, Yuhong, 2015. "Cross-validation for selecting a model selection procedure," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 187(1), pages 95-112.
    5. Villa, Cristiano & Rubio, Francisco J., 2018. "Objective priors for the number of degrees of freedom of a multivariate t distribution and the t-copula," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 197-219.
    6. Hamparsum Bozdogan, 1987. "Model selection and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC): The general theory and its analytical extensions," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 345-370, September.
    7. Arellano-Valle, Reinaldo B. & Azzalini, Adelchi, 2008. "The centred parametrization for the multivariate skew-normal distribution," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 99(7), pages 1362-1382, August.
    8. Reinaldo B. Arellano-Valle, 2010. "On the information matrix of the multivariate skew-t model," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 371-386.
    9. Shu-Ching Chang & Dale L. Zimmerman, 2016. "Skew-normal antedependence models for skewed longitudinal data," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 103(2), pages 363-376.
    10. A. Azzalini & A. Capitanio, 1999. "Statistical applications of the multivariate skew normal distribution," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 61(3), pages 579-602.
    11. Fan J. & Li R., 2001. "Variable Selection via Nonconcave Penalized Likelihood and its Oracle Properties," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 96, pages 1348-1360, December.
    12. Hansheng Wang & Runze Li & Chih-Ling Tsai, 2007. "Tuning parameter selectors for the smoothly clipped absolute deviation method," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 94(3), pages 553-568.
    13. Branco, Márcia D. & Dey, Dipak K., 2001. "A General Class of Multivariate Skew-Elliptical Distributions," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 99-113, October.
    14. Adelchi Azzalini & Antonella Capitanio, 2003. "Distributions generated by perturbation of symmetry with emphasis on a multivariate skew t‐distribution," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 65(2), pages 367-389, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Azzalini, Adelchi, 2022. "An overview on the progeny of the skew-normal family— A personal perspective," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arellano-Valle, Reinaldo B. & Azzalini, Adelchi, 2013. "The centred parameterization and related quantities of the skew-t distribution," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 73-90.
    2. Thomas J. DiCiccio & Anna Clara Monti, 2018. "Testing for sub-models of the skew t-distribution," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 27(1), pages 25-44, March.
    3. Kahrari, F. & Rezaei, M. & Yousefzadeh, F. & Arellano-Valle, R.B., 2016. "On the multivariate skew-normal-Cauchy distribution," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 80-88.
    4. Azzalini, Adelchi, 2022. "An overview on the progeny of the skew-normal family— A personal perspective," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    5. Reinaldo B. Arellano-Valle & Marc G. Genton, 2010. "Multivariate extended skew-t distributions and related families," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 201-234.
    6. Reinaldo B. Arellano-Valle, 2010. "On the information matrix of the multivariate skew-t model," Metron - International Journal of Statistics, Dipartimento di Statistica, Probabilità e Statistiche Applicate - University of Rome, vol. 0(3), pages 371-386.
    7. Setoudehtazangi, F. & Manouchehri, T. & Nematollahi, A.R. & Caporin, M., 2024. "Time series clustering based on latent volatility mixture modeling with applications in finance," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 543-564.
    8. Tsung-I Lin & Pal Wu & Geoffrey McLachlan & Sharon Lee, 2015. "A robust factor analysis model using the restricted skew- $$t$$ t distribution," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 24(3), pages 510-531, September.
    9. Ley, Christophe, 2023. "When the score function is the identity function - A tale of characterizations of the normal distribution," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 153-160.
    10. Panagiotelis, Anastasios & Smith, Michael, 2010. "Bayesian skew selection for multivariate models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1824-1839, July.
    11. Azzalini, Adelchi & Browne, Ryan P. & Genton, Marc G. & McNicholas, Paul D., 2016. "On nomenclature for, and the relative merits of, two formulations of skew distributions," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 201-206.
    12. Sladana Babic & Laetitia Gelbgras & Marc Hallin & Christophe Ley, 2019. "Optimal tests for elliptical symmetry: specified and unspecified location," Working Papers ECARES 2019-26, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    13. Mondal, Sagnik & Genton, Marc G., 2024. "A multivariate skew-normal-Tukey-h distribution," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    14. Sakyajit Bhattacharya & Paul McNicholas, 2014. "A LASSO-penalized BIC for mixture model selection," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 8(1), pages 45-61, March.
    15. Atefeh Zarei & Zahra Khodadadi & Mohsen Maleki & Karim Zare, 2023. "Robust mixture regression modeling based on two-piece scale mixtures of normal distributions," Advances in Data Analysis and Classification, Springer;German Classification Society - Gesellschaft für Klassifikation (GfKl);Japanese Classification Society (JCS);Classification and Data Analysis Group of the Italian Statistical Society (CLADAG);International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), vol. 17(1), pages 181-210, March.
    16. Shushi, Tomer, 2018. "A proof for the existence of multivariate singular generalized skew-elliptical density functions," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 50-55.
    17. Zinoviy Landsman & Udi Makov & Tomer Shushi, 2017. "Extended Generalized Skew-Elliptical Distributions and their Moments," Sankhya A: The Indian Journal of Statistics, Springer;Indian Statistical Institute, vol. 79(1), pages 76-100, February.
    18. Yin, Chuancun & Balakrishnan, Narayanaswamy, 2024. "Stochastic representations and probabilistic characteristics of multivariate skew-elliptical distributions," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    19. Adelchi Azzalini, 2012. "Selection models under generalized symmetry settings," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 64(4), pages 737-750, August.
    20. Kim, Hyoung-Moon & Genton, Marc G., 2011. "Characteristic functions of scale mixtures of multivariate skew-normal distributions," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(7), pages 1105-1117, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jmvana:v:179:y:2020:i:c:s0047259x20302207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622892/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.