Robust factor number specification for large-dimensional elliptical factor model

Long Yu, Yong He and Xinsheng Zhang

Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 2019, vol. 174, issue C

Abstract: The accurate specification for the number of factors is critical to the validity of factor models and the topic almost occupies the central position in factor analysis. Plenty of estimators are available under the restrictive condition that the fourth moments of the factors and idiosyncratic errors are bounded. In this paper we propose efficient and robust estimators for the factor number via considering a more general static Elliptical Factor Model (EFM) framework. We innovatively propose to exploit the multivariate Kendall’s tau matrix, which captures the correlation structure of elliptical random vectors. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed estimators are consistent without exerting any moment condition when both cross-sections N and time dimensions T go to infinity. Simulation study shows that the new estimators perform much better in heavy-tailed data setting while performing comparably with the state-of-the-art methods in the light-tailed Gaussian setting. At last, a real macroeconomic data example is given to illustrate its empirical advantages and usefulness.

Keywords: Elliptical factor model; Factor number; Multivariate Kendall’s tau matrix (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047259X18304378
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jmvana:v:174:y:2019:i:c:s0047259x18304378

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmva.2019.104543

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Multivariate Analysis is currently edited by de Leeuw, J.

More articles in Journal of Multivariate Analysis from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().