Premium
Confidence intervals for low dimensional parameters in high dimensional linear models
Author(s) -
Zhang CunHui,
Zhang Stephanie S.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of the royal statistical society: series b (statistical methodology)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.523
H-Index - 137
eISSN - 1467-9868
pISSN - 1369-7412
DOI - 10.1111/rssb.12026
Subject(s) - mathematics , estimator , linear regression , statistics , confidence interval , gaussian , interval estimation , confidence and prediction bands , linear model , coverage probability , asymptotic distribution , context (archaeology) , covariance , regression analysis , point estimation , paleontology , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
Summary The purpose of this paper is to propose methodologies for statistical inference of low dimensional parameters with high dimensional data. We focus on constructing confidence intervals for individual coefficients and linear combinations of several of them in a linear regression model, although our ideas are applicable in a much broader context. The theoretical results that are presented provide sufficient conditions for the asymptotic normality of the proposed estimators along with a consistent estimator for their finite dimensional covariance matrices. These sufficient conditions allow the number of variables to exceed the sample size and the presence of many small non‐zero coefficients. Our methods and theory apply to interval estimation of a preconceived regression coefficient or contrast as well as simultaneous interval estimation of many regression coefficients. Moreover, the method proposed turns the regression data into an approximate Gaussian sequence of point estimators of individual regression coefficients, which can be used to select variables after proper thresholding. The simulation results that are presented demonstrate the accuracy of the coverage probability of the confidence intervals proposed as well as other desirable properties, strongly supporting the theoretical results.