Determining the dimension of factor structures in non-stationary large datasets

Matteo Barigozzi and Lorenzo Trapani ()

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: We propose a procedure to determine the dimension of the common factor space in a large, possibly non-stationary, dataset. Our procedure is designed to determine whether there are (and how many) common factors (i) with linear trends, (ii) with stochastic trends, (iii) with no trends, i.e. stationary. Our analysis is based on the fact that the largest eigenvalues of a suitably scaled covariance matrix of the data (corresponding to the common factor part) diverge, as the dimension $N$ of the dataset diverges, whilst the others stay bounded. Therefore, we propose a class of randomised test statistics for the null that the $p$-th eigenvalue diverges, based directly on the estimated eigenvalue. The tests only requires minimal assumptions on the data, and no restrictions on the relative rates of divergence of $N$ and $T$ are imposed. Monte Carlo evidence shows that our procedure has very good finite sample properties, clearly dominating competing approaches when no common factors are present. We illustrate our methodology through an application to US bond yields with different maturities observed over the last 30 years. A common linear trend and two common stochastic trends are found and identified as the classical level, slope and curvature factors.

Date: 2018-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm, nep-ets and nep-knm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.03647 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Determining the dimension of factor structures in non-stationary large datasets (2018)
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:arx:papers:1806.03647

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Papers from arXiv.org
Bibliographic data for series maintained by arXiv administrators ().