We consider the problem of combining data from observational and experimental sources to make causal conclusions. This problem is increasingly relevant, as the modern era has yielded passive collection of massive observational datasets in areas such as e-commerce and electronic health. These data may be used to supplement experimental data, which is frequently expensive to obtain. In Rosenman et al. (2018), we considered this problem under the assumption that all confounders were measured. Here, we relax the assumption of unconfoundedness. To derive combined estimators with desirable properties, we make use of results from the Stein Shrinkage literature. Our contributions are threefold. First, we propose a generic procedure for deriving shrinkage estimators in this setting, making use of a generalized unbiased risk estimate. Second, we develop two new estimators, prove finite sample conditions under which they have lower risk than an estimator using only experimental data, and show that each achieves a notion of asymptotic optimality. Third, we draw connections between our approach and results in sensitivity analysis, including proposing a method for evaluating the feasibility of our estimators.
In this paper we derive the optimal linear shrinkage estimator for the high-dimensional mean vector using random matrix theory. The results are obtained under the assumption that both the dimension $p$ and the sample size $n$ tend to infinity in such a way that $p/n \to c\in(0,\infty)$. Under weak conditions imposed on the underlying data generating mechanism, we find the asymptotic equivalents to the optimal shrinkage intensities and estimate them consistently. The proposed nonparametric estimator for the high-dimensional mean vector has a simple structure and is proven to minimize asymptotic…
Estimating a covariance matrix is an important task in applications where the number of variables is larger than the number of observations. Shrinkage approaches for estimating a high-dimensional covariance matrix are often employed to circumvent the limitations of the sample covariance matrix. A new family of nonparametric Stein-type shrinkage covariance estimators is proposed whose members are written as a convex linear combination of the sample covariance matrix and of a predefined invertible target matrix. Under the Frobenius norm criterion, the optimal shrinkage intensity that defines the…
The negative multinomial distribution is a multivariate generalization of the negative binomial distribution. In this paper, we consider the problem of estimating an unknown matrix of probabilities on the basis of observations of negative multinomial variables under the standardized squared error loss. First, a general sufficient condition for a shrinkage estimator to dominate the UMVU estimator is derived and an empirical Bayes estimator satisfying the condition is constructed. Next, a hierarchical shrinkage prior is introduced, an associated Bayes estimator is shown to dominate the UMVU esti…
We consider shrinkage estimation of higher order Hilbert space valued Bochner integrals in a non-parametric setting. We propose estimators that shrink the $U$-statistic estimator of the Bochner integral towards a pre-specified target element in the Hilbert space. Depending on the degeneracy of the kernel of the $U$-statistic, we construct consistent shrinkage estimators with fast rates of convergence, and develop oracle inequalities comparing the risks of the the $U$-statistic estimator and its shrinkage version. Surprisingly, we show that the shrinkage estimator designed by assuming complete …
Ranked set sampling (RSS) is used as a powerful data collection technique for situations where measuring the study variable requires a costly and/or tedious process while the sampling units can be ranked easily (e.g., osteoporosis research). In this paper, we develop ridge and Liu-type shrinkage estimators under RSS data from multiple observers to handle the collinearity problem in estimating coefficients of linear regression, stochastic restricted regression and logistic regression. Through extensive numerical studies, we show that shrinkage methods with the multi-observer RSS result in more …
In a remarkable series of papers beginning in 1956, Charles Stein set the stage for the future development of minimax shrinkage estimators of a multivariate normal mean under quadratic loss. More recently, parallel developments have seen the emergence of minimax shrinkage estimators of multivariate normal predictive densities under Kullback--Leibler risk. We here describe these parallels emphasizing the focus on Bayes procedures and the derivation of the superharmonic conditions for minimaxity as well as further developments of new minimax shrinkage predictive density estimators including mult…
Shrinkage estimation usually reduces variance at the cost of bias. But when we care only about some parameters of a model, I show that we can reduce variance without incurring bias if we have additional information about the distribution of covariates. In a linear regression model with homoscedastic Normal noise, I consider shrinkage estimation of the nuisance parameters associated with control variables. For at least three control variables and exogenous treatment, I establish that the standard least-squares estimator is dominated with respect to squared-error loss in the treatment effect eve…
Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is a typical method for classification problems with large dimensions and small samples. There are various types of LDA methods that are based on the different types of estimators for the covariance matrices and mean vectors. In this paper, we consider shrinkage methods based on a non-parametric approach. For the precision matrix, methods based on the sparsity structure or data splitting are examined. Regarding the estimation of mean vectors, Non-parametric Empirical Bayes (NPEB) methods and Non-parametric Maximum Likelihood Estimation (NPMLE) methods, also k…
This paper considers a multiple regression model and compares, under full model hypothesis, analytically as well as by simulation, the performance characteristics of some popular penalty estimators such as ridge regression, LASSO, adaptive LASSO, SCAD, and elastic net versus Least Squares Estimator, restricted estimator, preliminary test estimator, and Stein-type estimators when the dimension of the parameter space is smaller than the sample space dimension. We find that RR uniformly dominates LSE, RE, PTE, SE and PRSE while LASSO, aLASSO, SCAD, and EN uniformly dominates LSE only. Further, it…
In this paper, we treat estimation and prediction problems where negative multinomial variables are observed and in particular consider unbalanced settings. First, the problem of estimating multiple negative multinomial parameter vectors under the standardized squared error loss is treated and a new empirical Bayes estimator which dominates the UMVU estimator under suitable conditions is derived. Second, we consider estimation of the joint predictive density of several multinomial tables under the Kullback-Leibler divergence and obtain a sufficient condition under which the Bayesian predictive…
The two-stage least-squares (2SLS) estimator is known to be biased when its first-stage fit is poor. I show that better first-stage prediction can alleviate this bias. In a two-stage linear regression model with Normal noise, I consider shrinkage in the estimation of the first-stage instrumental variable coefficients. For at least four instrumental variables and a single endogenous regressor, I establish that the standard 2SLS estimator is dominated with respect to bias. The dominating IV estimator applies James-Stein type shrinkage in a first-stage high-dimensional Normal-means problem follow…
Analyzing large samples of high-dimensional data under dependence is a challenging statistical problem as long time series may have change points, most importantly in the mean and the marginal covariances, for which one needs valid tests. Inference for large covariance matrices is especially difficult due to noise accumulation, resulting in singular estimates and poor power of related tests. The singularity of the sample covariance matrix in high dimensions can be overcome by considering a linear combination with a regular, more structured target matrix. This approach is known as shrinkage, an…
We derive an optimal shrinkage sample covariance matrix (SCM) estimator which is suitable for high dimensional problems and when sampling from an unspecified elliptically symmetric distribution. Specifically, we derive the optimal (oracle) shrinkage parameters that obtain the minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) between the shrinkage SCM and the true covariance matrix when sampling from an elliptical distribution. Subsequently, we show how the oracle shrinkage parameters can be consistently estimated under the random matrix theory regime. Simulations show the advantage of the proposed estimator o…
A popular regularized (shrinkage) covariance estimator is the shrinkage sample covariance matrix (SCM) which shares the same set of eigenvectors as the SCM but shrinks its eigenvalues toward its grand mean. In this paper, a more general approach is considered in which the SCM is replaced by an M-estimator of scatter matrix and a fully automatic data adaptive method to compute the optimal shrinkage parameter with minimum mean squared error is proposed. Our approach permits the use of any weight function such as Gaussian, Huber's, or $t$ weight functions, all of which are commonly used in M-esti…
A robust estimator is proposed for the parameters that characterize the linear regression problem. It is based on the notion of shrinkages, often used in Finance and previously studied for outlier detection in multivariate data. A thorough simulation study is conducted to investigate: the efficiency with normal and heavy-tailed errors, the robustness under contamination, the computational times, the affine equivariance and breakdown value of the regression estimator. Two classical data-sets often used in the literature and a real socio-economic data-set about the Living Environment Deprivation…
Linear shrinkage estimators of a covariance matrix --- defined by a weighted average of the sample covariance matrix and a pre-specified shrinkage target matrix --- are popular when analysing high-throughput molecular data. However, their performance strongly relies on an appropriate choice of target matrix. This paper introduces a more flexible class of linear shrinkage estimators that can accommodate multiple shrinkage target matrices, directly accounting for the uncertainty regarding the target choice. This is done within a conjugate Bayesian framework, which is computationally efficient. U…
We develop an adaptive monotone shrinkage estimator for regression models with the following characteristics: i) dense coefficients with small but important effects; ii) a priori ordering that indicates the probable predictive importance of the features. We capture both properties with an empirical Bayes estimator that shrinks coefficients monotonically with respect to their anticipated importance. This estimator can be rapidly computed using a version of Pool-Adjacent-Violators algorithm. We show that the proposed monotone shrinkage approach is competitive with the class of all Bayesian estim…
We develop and analyze empirical Bayes Stein-type estimators for use in the estimation of causal effects in large-scale online experiments. While online experiments are generally thought to be distinguished by their large sample size, we focus on the multiplicity of treatment groups. The typical analysis practice is to use simple differences-in-means (perhaps with covariate adjustment) as if all treatment arms were independent. In this work we develop consistent, small bias, shrinkage estimators for this setting. In addition to achieving lower mean squared error these estimators retain importa…
For the regression model where the errors follow the elliptically contoured distribution (ECD), we consider the least squares (LS), restricted LS (RLS), preliminary test (PT), Stein-type shrinkage (S) and positive-rule shrinkage (PRS) estimators for the regression parameters. We compare the quadratic risks of the estimators to determine the relative dominance properties of the five estimators.
In this paper, a new ridge-type shrinkage estimator for the precision matrix has been proposed. The asymptotic optimal shrinkage coefficients and the theoretical loss were derived. Data-driven estimators for the shrinkage coefficients were also conducted based on the asymptotic results deriving from random matrix theories. The new estimator which has a simple explicit formula is distribution-free and applicable to situation where the dimension of observation is greater than the sample size. Further, no assumptions are required on the structure of the population covariance matrix or the precisi…
In this paper, a shrinkage estimator for the population mean is proposed under known quadratic loss functions with unknown covariance matrices. The new estimator is non-parametric in the sense that it does not assume a specific parametric distribution for the data and it does not require the prior information on the population covariance matrix. Analytical results on the improvement of the proposed shrinkage estimator are provided and some corresponding asymptotic properties are also derived. Finally, we demonstrate the practical improvement of the proposed method over existing methods through…
A recent interest in resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) lies in subdividing the human brain into anatomically and functionally distinct regions of interest. For example, brain parcellation is often used for defining the network nodes in connectivity studies. While inference has traditionally been performed on group-level data, there is a growing interest in parcellating single subject data. However, this is difficult due to the low signal-to-noise ratio of rsfMRI data, combined with typically short scan lengths. A large number of brain parcellation approaches employ c…
This paper considers the problem of estimating a high-dimensional (HD) covariance matrix when the sample size is smaller, or not much larger, than the dimensionality of the data, which could potentially be very large. We develop a regularized sample covariance matrix (RSCM) estimator which can be applied in commonly occurring sparse data problems. The proposed RSCM estimator is based on estimators of the unknown optimal (oracle) shrinkage parameters that yield the minimum mean squared error (MMSE) between the RSCM and the true covariance matrix when the data is sampled from an unspecified elli…
A collection of robust Mahalanobis distances for multivariate outlier detection is proposed, based on the notion of shrinkage. Robust intensity and scaling factors are optimally estimated to define the shrinkage. Some properties are investigated, such as affine equivariance and breakdown value. The performance of the proposal is illustrated through the comparison to other techniques from the literature, in a simulation study and with a real dataset. The behavior when the underlying distribution is heavy-tailed or skewed, shows the appropriateness of the method when we deviate from the common a…
This paper considers a high-dimensional linear regression problem where there are complex correlation structures among predictors. We propose a graph-constrained regularization procedure, named Sparse Laplacian Shrinkage with the Graphical Lasso Estimator (SLS-GLE). The procedure uses the estimated precision matrix to describe the specific information on the conditional dependence pattern among predictors, and encourages both sparsity on the regression model and the graphical model. We introduce the Laplacian quadratic penalty adopting the graph information, and give detailed discussions on th…
The paper concerns small-area estimation in the Fay-Herriot type area-level model with random dispersions, which models the case that the sampling errors change from area to area. The resulting Bayes estimator shrinks both means and variances, but needs numerical computation to provide the estimates. In this paper, an approximated empirical Bayes (AEB) estimator with a closed form is suggested. The model parameters are estimated via the moment method, and the mean squared error of the AEB is estimated via the single parametric bootstrap method. The benchmarked estimator and a second-order unbi…
Beta regression model is useful in the analysis of bounded continuous outcomes such as proportions. It is well known that for any regression model, the presence of multicollinearity leads to poor performance of the maximum likelihood estimators. The ridge type estimators have been proposed to alleviate the adverse effects of the multicollinearity. Furthermore, when some of the predictors have insignificant or weak effects on the outcomes, it is desired to recover as much information as possible from these predictors instead of discarding them all together. In this paper we proposed ridge type …
In this work, we study the positive definiteness (PDness) problem in covariance matrix estimation. For high dimensional data, many regularized estimators are proposed under structural assumptions on the true covariance matrix including sparsity. They are shown to be asymptotically consistent and rate-optimal in estimating the true covariance matrix and its structure. However, many of them do not take into account the PDness of the estimator and produce a non-PD estimate. To achieve the PDness, researchers consider additional regularizations (or constraints) on eigenvalues, which make both the …
One of the major challenges in multivariate analysis is the estimation of population covariance matrix from sample covariance matrix (SCM). Most recent covariance matrix estimators use either shrinkage transformations or asymptotic results from Random Matrix Theory (RMT). Shrinkage techniques help in pulling extreme correlation values towards certain target values whereas tools from RMT help in removing noisy eigenvalues of SCM. Both of these techniques use different approaches to achieve a similar goal which is to remove noisy correlations and add structure to SCM to overcome the bias-varianc…
In this paper, we apply shrinkage strategies to estimate regression coefficients efficiently for the high-dimensional multiple regression model, where the number of samples is smaller than the number of predictors. We assume in the sparse linear model some of the predictors have very weak influence on the response of interest. We propose to shrink estimators more than usual. Specifically, we use integrated estimation strategies in sub and full models and shrink the integrated estimators by incorporating a bounded measurable function of some weights. The exhibited double shrunken estimators imp…
A highly popular regularized (shrinkage) covariance matrix estimator is the shrinkage sample covariance matrix (SCM) which shares the same set of eigenvectors as the SCM but shrinks its eigenvalues toward the grand mean of the eigenvalues of the SCM. In this paper, a more general approach is considered in which the SCM is replaced by an M-estimator of scatter matrix and a fully automatic data adaptive method to compute the optimal shrinkage parameter with minimum mean squared error is proposed. Our approach permits the use of any weight function such as Gaussian, Huber's, Tyler's, or t-weight …
Let $X$ be a random vector with distribution $P_θ$ where $θ$ is an unknown parameter. When estimating $θ$ by some estimator $φ(X)$ under a loss function $L(θ,φ)$, classical decision theory advocates that such a decision rule should be used if it has suitable properties with respect to the frequentist risk $R(θ,φ)$. However, after having observed $X=x$, instances arise in practice in which $φ$ is to be accompanied by an assessment of its loss, $L(θ,φ(x))$, which is unobservable since $θ$ is unknown. A common approach to this assessment is to consider estimation of $L(θ,φ(x))$ by an estimator $δ…
In many applications (e.g., medical studies), the population of interest (e.g., disease status) comprises heterogeneous subpopulations. The mixture of probabilistic regression models is one of the most common techniques to incorporate the information of covariates into learning of the population heterogeneity. Despite its flexibility, the model may lead to unreliable estimates in the presence of multicollinearity problem. In this paper, we develop Liu-type shrinkage methods through an unsupervised learning approach to estimate the model coefficients in multicollinearity. The performance of the…
This paper introduces a simple principle for robust high-dimensional statistical inference via an appropriate shrinkage on the data. This widens the scope of high-dimensional techniques, reducing the moment conditions from sub-exponential or sub-Gaussian distributions to merely bounded second or fourth moment. As an illustration of this principle, we focus on robust estimation of the low-rank matrix $Θ^*$ from the trace regression model $Y=Tr (Θ^{*T}X) +ε$. It encompasses four popular problems: sparse linear models, compressed sensing, matrix completion and multi-task regression. We propose to…
We address covariance estimation in the sense of minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) for Gaussian samples. Specifically, we consider shrinkage methods which are suitable for high dimensional problems with a small number of samples (large p small n). First, we improve on the Ledoit-Wolf (LW) method by conditioning on a sufficient statistic. By the Rao-Blackwell theorem, this yields a new estimator called RBLW, whose mean-squared error dominates that of LW for Gaussian variables. Second, to further reduce the estimation error, we propose an iterative approach which approximates the clairvoyant shr…
This paper considers the regularized Tyler's scatter estimator for elliptical distributions, which has received considerable attention recently. Various types of shrinkage Tyler's estimators have been proposed in the literature and proved work effectively in the "small n large p" scenario. Nevertheless, the existence and uniqueness properties of the estimators are not thoroughly studied, and in certain cases the algorithms may fail to converge. In this work, we provide a general result that analyzes the sufficient condition for the existence of a family of shrinkage Tyler's estimators, which q…
Portfolio optimization requires sophisticated covariance estimators that are able to filter out estimation noise. Non-linear shrinkage is a popular estimator based on how the Oracle eigenvalues can be computed using only data from the calibration window. Contrary to common belief, NLS is not optimal for portfolio optimization because it does not minimize the right cost function when the asset dependence structure is non-stationary. We instead derive the optimal target. Using historical data, we quantify by how much NLS can be improved. Our findings reopen the question of how to build the covar…
Department of Statistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校统计学系）
We consider a Bayesian framework for estimating a high-dimensional sparse precision matrix, in which adaptive shrinkage and sparsity are induced by a mixture of Laplace priors. Besides discussing our formulation from the Bayesian standpoint, we investigate the MAP (maximum a posteriori) estimator from a penalized likelihood perspective that gives rise to a new non-convex penalty approximating the $\ell_0$ penalty. Optimal error rates for estimation consistency in terms of various matrix norms along with selection consistency for sparse structure recovery are shown for the unique MAP estimator …
We consider how increasingly available observational data can be used to improve the design of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). We seek to design a prospective RCT, with the intent of using an Empirical Bayes estimator to shrink the causal estimates from our trial toward causal estimates obtained from an observational study. We ask: how might we design the experiment to better complement the observational study in this setting? We propose using an estimator that shrinks each component of the RCT causal estimator toward its observational counterpart by a factor proportional to its variance.…
Recovering a low-rank signal matrix from its noisy observation, commonly known as matrix denoising, is a fundamental inverse problem in statistical signal processing. Matrix denoising methods are generally based on shrinkage or thresholding of singular values with a predetermined shrinkage parameter or threshold. However, most of the existing adaptive shrinkage methods use multiple parameters to obtain a better flexibility in shrinkage. The optimal value of these parameters using either cross-validation or Stein's principle. In both the cases, the iterative estimation of various parameters ren…
In high-dimensional data settings where $p\gg n$, many penalized regularization approaches were studied for simultaneous variable selection and estimation. However, with the existence of covariates with weak effect, many existing variable selection methods, including Lasso and its generations, cannot distinguish covariates with weak and no contribution. Thus, prediction based on a subset model of selected covariates only can be inefficient. In this paper, we propose a post selection shrinkage estimation strategy to improve the prediction performance of a selected subset model. Such a post sele…
