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The asymptotic inadmissibility of the spatial sign covariance matrix for elliptically symmetric distributions

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  • Andrew F. Magyar
  • David E. Tyler

Abstract

The asymptotic efficiency of the spatial sign covariance matrix relative to affine equivariant estimators of scatter is studied. In particular, the spatial sign covariance matrix is shown to be asymptotically inadmissible, i.e., the asymptotic covariance matrix of the consistency-corrected spatial sign covariance matrix is uniformly larger than that of its affine equivariant counterpart, namely Tyler’s scatter matrix. Although the spatial sign covariance matrix has often been recommended when one is interested in principal components analysis, its inefficiency is shown to be most severe in situations where principal components are of greatest interest. Simulation shows that the inefficiency of the spatial sign covariance matrix also holds for small sample sizes, and that the asymptotic relative efficiency is a good approximation to the finite-sample efficiency for relatively modest sample sizes.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew F. Magyar & David E. Tyler, 2014. "The asymptotic inadmissibility of the spatial sign covariance matrix for elliptically symmetric distributions," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 101(3), pages 673-688.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:biomet:v:101:y:2014:i:3:p:673-688.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/biomet/asu020
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    Cited by:

    1. Raymaekers, Jakob & Rousseeuw, Peter, 2019. "A generalized spatial sign covariance matrix," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 94-111.
    2. Xu, Yangchang & Xia, Ningning, 2023. "On the eigenvectors of large-dimensional sample spatial sign covariance matrices," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    3. Majumdar, Subhabrata & Chatterjee, Snigdhansu, 2022. "On weighted multivariate sign functions," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    4. Dürre, Alexander & Tyler, David E. & Vogel, Daniel, 2016. "On the eigenvalues of the spatial sign covariance matrix in more than two dimensions," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 80-85.

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