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An empirical estimator for the sparsity of a large covariance matrix under multivariate normal assumptions

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  • Binyan Jiang

Abstract

Large covariance or correlation matrix is frequently assumed to be sparse in that a number of the off-diagonal elements of the matrix are zero. This paper focuses on estimating the sparsity of a large population covariance matrix using a sample correlation matrix under multivariate normal assumptions. We show that sparsity of a population covariance matrix can be well estimated by thresholding the sample correlation matrix. We then propose an empirical estimator for the sparsity and show that it is closely related to the thresholding methods. Upper bounds for the estimation error of the empirical estimator are given under mild conditions. Simulation shows that the empirical estimator can have smaller mean absolute errors than its main competitors. Furthermore, when the dimension of the covariance matrix is very large, we propose a generalized empirical estimator using simple random sampling. It is shown that the generalized empirical estimator can still estimate the sparsity well while the computation complexity can be greatly reduced. Copyright The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Tokyo 2015

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  • Binyan Jiang, 2015. "An empirical estimator for the sparsity of a large covariance matrix under multivariate normal assumptions," Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Springer;The Institute of Statistical Mathematics, vol. 67(2), pages 211-227, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:aistmt:v:67:y:2015:i:2:p:211-227
    DOI: 10.1007/s10463-014-0447-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Adam J. Rothman, 2012. "Positive definite estimators of large covariance matrices," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 99(3), pages 733-740.
    2. Binyan Jiang & Wei-Liem Loh, 2012. "On the sparsity of signals in a random sample," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 99(4), pages 915-928.
    3. Jiang, Binyan, 2013. "Covariance selection by thresholding the sample correlation matrix," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(11), pages 2492-2498.
    4. Lingzhou Xue & Shiqian Ma & Hui Zou, 2012. "Positive-Definite ℓ 1 -Penalized Estimation of Large Covariance Matrices," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(500), pages 1480-1491, December.
    5. Cai, Tony & Liu, Weidong, 2011. "Adaptive Thresholding for Sparse Covariance Matrix Estimation," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 106(494), pages 672-684.
    6. Rothman, Adam J. & Levina, Elizaveta & Zhu, Ji, 2009. "Generalized Thresholding of Large Covariance Matrices," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 104(485), pages 177-186.
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