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In this paper, we propose an easy-to-implement residual-based specification testing procedure for detecting structural changes in factor models, which is powerful against both smooth and abrupt structural changes with unknown break dates. The proposed test is robust against the over-specified number of factors, and serially and cross-sectionally correlated error processes. A new central limit theorem is given for the quadratic forms of panel data with dependence over both dimensions, thereby filling a gap in the literature. We establish the asymptotic properties of the proposed test statistic, and accordingly develop a simulation-based scheme to select critical value in order to improve finite sample performance. Through extensive simulations and a real-world application, we confirm our theoretical results and demonstrate that the proposed test exhibits desirable size and power in practice.

In this paper, we propose a robust estimation and inferential method for high-dimensional panel data models. Specifically, (1) we investigate the case where the number of regressors can grow faster than the sample size, (2) we pay particular attention to non-Gaussian, serially and cross-sectionally correlated and heteroskedastic error processes, and (3) we develop an estimation method for high-dimensional long-run covariance matrix using a thresholded estimator. Methodologically and technically, we develop two Nagaev-types of concentration inequalities: one for a partial sum and the other for a quadratic form, subject to a set of easily verifiable conditions. Leveraging these two inequalities, we also derive a non-asymptotic bound for the LASSO estimator, achieve asymptotic normality via the node-wise LASSO regression, and establish a sharp convergence rate for the thresholded heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation consistent (HAC) estimator. Our study thus provides the relevant literature with a complete toolkit for conducting inference about the parameters of interest involved in a high-dimensional panel data framework. We also demonstrate the practical relevance of these theoretical results by investigating a high-dimensional panel data model with interactive fixed effects. Moreover, we conduct extensive numerical studies using simulated and real data examples.

Hierarchical panel data models have recently garnered significant attention. This study contributes to the relevant literature by introducing a novel three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical panel data model, which integrates panel regression with three sets of latent factor structures: one set of global factors and two sets of local factors. Instead of aggregating latent factors from various nodes, as seen in the literature of distributed principal component analysis (PCA), we propose an estimation approach capable of recovering the parameters of interest and disentangling latent factors at different levels and across different dimensions. We establish an asymptotic theory and provide a bootstrap procedure to obtain inference for the parameters of interest while accommodating various types of cross-sectional dependence and time series autocorrelation. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of our framework by examining productivity convergence in manufacturing industries worldwide.

In this paper, we consider estimation and inference for the unknown parameters and function involved in a class of generalized hierarchical models. Such models are of great interest in the literature of neural networks (such as Bauer and Kohler, 2019). We propose a rectified linear unit (ReLU) based deep neural network (DNN) approach, and contribute to the design of DNN by i) providing more transparency for practical implementation, ii) defining different types of sparsity, iii) showing the differentiability, iv) pointing out the set of effective parameters, and v) offering a new variant of rectified linear activation function (ReLU), etc. Asymptotic properties are established accordingly, and a feasible procedure for the purpose of inference is also proposed. We conduct extensive numerical studies to examine the finite-sample performance of the estimation methods, and we also evaluate the empirical relevance and applicability of the proposed models and estimation methods to real data.

To tackle difficulties for theoretical studies in situations involving nonsmooth functions, we propose a sequence of infinitely differentiable functions to approximate the nonsmooth function under consideration. A rate of approximation is established and an illustration of its application is then provided.

In this paper, we propose a localized neural network (LNN) model and then develop the LNN based estimation and inferential procedures for dependent data in both cases with quantitative/qualitative outcomes. We explore the use of identification restrictions from a nonparametric regression perspective, and establish an estimation theory for the LNN setting under a set of mild conditions. The asymptotic distributions are derived accordingly, and we show that LNN automatically eliminates the dependence of data when calculating the asymptotic variances. The finding is important, as one can easily use different types of wild bootstrap methods to obtain valid inference practically. In particular, for quantitative outcomes, the proposed LNN approach yields closed-form expressions for the estimates of some key estimators of interest. Last but not least, we examine our theoretical findings through extensive numerical studies.

This paper considers a time-varying vector error-correction model that allows for different time series behaviours (e.g., unit-root and locally stationary processes) to interact with each other to co-exist. From practical perspectives, this framework can be used to estimate shifts in the predictability of non-stationary variables, test whether economic theories hold periodically, etc. We first develop a time-varying Granger Representation Theorem, which facilitates the establishment of asymptotic properties for the model, and then propose estimation and inferential methods and theory for both short-run and long-run coefficients. We also propose an information criterion to estimate the lag length, a singular-value ratio test to determine the cointegration rank, and a hypothesis test to examine the parameter stability. To validate the theoretical findings, we conduct extensive simulations. Finally, we demonstrate the empirical relevance by applying the framework to investigate the rational expectations hypothesis of the U.S. term structure.

In order to understand the anti-site disorder effect on the anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) effect in alloys, $\rm{Fe}_{50}Co_{50}$ alloys were studied in this work using the fully relativistic spin-polarized screened (KKR) method. The anti-site effect was modeled by interchanging Fe and Co atoms and treated by the coherent potential approximation (CPA). We find that the anti-site disorder broadens the spectral function and decreases the conductivity. Our work emphasizes that the absolute variations of resistivity under magnetic moment rotation are less affected by atomic disorders. The annealing procedure improves the AMR by reduction of the total resistivity. At the same time, we also find that the fourth-order term in the angular dependent resistivity becomes weaker when the disorder increases, resulting from increased scattering of the states around the band-crossing., Comment: 12pages, 7 figures

This paper introduces a flexible time-varying network vector autoregressive model framework for large-scale time series. A latent group structure is imposed on the heterogeneous and node-specific time-varying momentum and network spillover effects so that the number of unknown time-varying coefficients to be estimated can be reduced considerably. A classic agglomerative clustering algorithm with nonparametrically estimated distance matrix is combined with a ratio criterion to consistently estimate the latent group number and membership. A post-grouping local linear smoothing method is proposed to estimate the group-specific time-varying momentum and network effects, substantially improving the convergence rates of the preliminary estimates which ignore the latent structure. We further modify the methodology and theory to allow for structural breaks in either the group membership, group number or group-specific coefficient functions. Numerical studies including Monte-Carlo simulation and an empirical application are presented to examine the finite-sample performance of the developed model and methodology.

Robust M-estimation uses loss functions, such as least absolute deviation (LAD), quantile loss and Huber's loss, to construct its objective function, in order to for example eschew the impact of outliers, whereas the difficulty in analysing the resultant estimators rests on the nonsmoothness of these losses. Generalized functions have advantages over ordinary functions in several aspects, especially generalized functions possess derivatives of any order. Generalized functions incorporate local integrable functions, the so-called regular generalized functions, while the so-called singular generalized functions (e.g. Dirac delta function) can be obtained as the limits of a sequence of sufficient smooth functions, so-called regular sequence in generalized function context. This makes it possible to use these singular generalized functions through approximation. Nevertheless, a significant contribution of this paper is to establish the convergence rate of regular sequence to nonsmooth loss that answers a call from the relevant literature. For parameter estimation where objective function may be nonsmooth, this paper first shows as a general paradigm that how generalized function approach can be used to tackle the nonsmooth loss functions in Section two using a very simple model. This approach is of general interest and applicability. We further use the approach in robust M-estimation for additive single-index cointegrating time series models; the asymptotic theory is established for the proposed estimators. We evaluate the finite-sample performance of the proposed estimation method and theory by both simulated data and an empirical analysis of predictive regression of stock returns., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2111.02023

Time series data appears in a variety of applications such as smart transportation and environmental monitoring. One of the fundamental problems for time series analysis is time series forecasting. Despite the success of recent deep time series forecasting methods, they require sufficient observation of historical values to make accurate forecasting. In other words, the ratio of the output length (or forecasting horizon) to the sum of the input and output lengths should be low enough (e.g., 0.3). As the ratio increases (e.g., to 0.8), the uncertainty for the forecasting accuracy increases significantly. In this paper, we show both theoretically and empirically that the uncertainty could be effectively reduced by retrieving relevant time series as references. In the theoretical analysis, we first quantify the uncertainty and show its connections to the Mean Squared Error (MSE). Then we prove that models with references are easier to learn than models without references since the retrieved references could reduce the uncertainty. To empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of the retrieval based time series forecasting models, we introduce a simple yet effective two-stage method, called ReTime consisting of a relational retrieval and a content synthesis. We also show that ReTime can be easily adapted to the spatial-temporal time series and time series imputation settings. Finally, we evaluate ReTime on real-world datasets to demonstrate its effectiveness., Comment: CIKM'22 AMLTS

In this paper, we consider a wide class of time-varying multivariate causal processes which nests many classic and new examples as special cases. We first prove the existence of a weakly dependent stationary approximation for our model which is the foundation to initiate the theoretical development. Afterwards, we consider the QMLE estimation approach, and provide both point-wise and simultaneous inferences on the coefficient functions. In addition, we demonstrate the theoretical findings through both simulated and real data examples. In particular, we show the empirical relevance of our study using an application to evaluate the conditional correlations between the stock markets of China and U.S. We find that the interdependence between the two stock markets is increasing over time.

In this paper, we propose a simple inferential method for a wide class of panel data models with a focus on such cases that have both serial correlation and cross-sectional dependence. In order to establish an asymptotic theory to support the inferential method, we develop some new and useful higher-order expansions, such as Berry-Esseen bound and Edgeworth Expansion, under a set of simple and general conditions. We further demonstrate the usefulness of these theoretical results by explicitly investigating a panel data model with interactive effects which nests many traditional panel data models as special cases. Finally, we show the superiority of our approach over several natural competitors using extensive numerical studies.

Long-term scene changes present challenges to localization systems using a pre-built map. This paper presents a LiDAR-based system that can provide robust localization against those challenges. Our method starts with activation of a mapping process temporarily when global matching towards the pre-built map is unreliable. The temporary map will be merged onto the pre-built map for later localization runs once reliable matching is obtained again. We further integrate a LiDAR inertial odometry (LIO) to provide motion-compensated LiDAR scans and a reliable initial pose guess for the global matching module. To generate a smooth real-time trajectory for navigation purposes, we fuse poses from odometry and global matching by solving a pose graph optimization problem. We evaluate our localization system with extensive experiments on the NCLT dataset including a variety of changing indoor and outdoor environments, and the results demonstrate a robust and accurate localization performance for over a year. The implementations are open sourced on GitHub.

This paper considers a model with general regressors and unobservable factors. An estimator based on iterated principal components is proposed, which is shown to be not only asymptotically normal and oracle efficient, but under certain conditions also free of the otherwise so common asymptotic incidental parameters bias. Interestingly, the conditions required to achieve unbiasedness become weaker the stronger the trends in the factors, and if the trending is strong enough unbiasedness comes at no cost at all. In particular, the approach does not require any knowledge of how many factors there are, or whether they are deterministic or stochastic. The order of integration of the factors is also treated as unknown, as is the order of integration of the regressors, which means that there is no need to pre-test for unit roots, or to decide on which deterministic terms to include in the model.

This paper proposes a class of parametric multiple-index time series models that involve linear combinations of time trends, stationary variables and unit root processes as regressors. The inclusion of the three different types of time series, along with the use of a multiple-index structure for these variables to circumvent the curse of dimensionality, is due to both theoretical and practical considerations. The M-type estimators (including OLS, LAD, Huber's estimator, quantile and expectile estimators, etc.) for the index vectors are proposed, and their asymptotic properties are established, with the aid of the generalized function approach to accommodate a wide class of loss functions that may not be necessarily differentiable at every point. The proposed multiple-index model is then applied to study the stock return predictability, which reveals strong nonlinear predictability under various loss measures. Monte Carlo simulations are also included to evaluate the finite-sample performance of the proposed estimators.