When is it worthwhile to jackknife? Breaking the quadratic barrier for Z-estimators

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Lin, Licong, Su, Fangzhou, Mou, Wenlong, Ding, Peng, Wainwright, Martin
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Lin, Licong
Su, Fangzhou
Mou, Wenlong
Ding, Peng
Wainwright, Martin
author_facet Lin, Licong
Su, Fangzhou
Mou, Wenlong
Ding, Peng
Wainwright, Martin
contents Resampling methods are especially well-suited to inference with estimators that provide only "black-box'' access. Jackknife is a form of resampling, widely used for bias correction and variance estimation, that is well-understood under classical scaling where the sample size $n$ grows for a fixed problem. We study its behavior in application to estimating functionals using high-dimensional $Z$-estimators, allowing both the sample size $n$ and problem dimension $d$ to diverge. We begin showing that the plug-in estimator based on the $Z$-estimate suffers from a quadratic breakdown: while it is $\sqrt{n}$-consistent and asymptotically normal whenever $n \gtrsim d^2$, it fails for a broad class of problems whenever $n \lesssim d^2$. We then show that under suitable regularity conditions, applying a jackknife correction yields an estimate that is $\sqrt{n}$-consistent and asymptotically normal whenever $n\gtrsim d^{3/2}$. This provides strong motivation for the use of jackknife in high-dimensional problems where the dimension is moderate relative to sample size. We illustrate consequences of our general theory for various specific $Z$-estimators, including non-linear functionals in linear models; generalized linear models; and the inverse propensity score weighting (IPW) estimate for the average treatment effect, among others.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_02909
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle When is it worthwhile to jackknife? Breaking the quadratic barrier for Z-estimators
Lin, Licong
Su, Fangzhou
Mou, Wenlong
Ding, Peng
Wainwright, Martin
Statistics Theory
Methodology
Resampling methods are especially well-suited to inference with estimators that provide only "black-box'' access. Jackknife is a form of resampling, widely used for bias correction and variance estimation, that is well-understood under classical scaling where the sample size $n$ grows for a fixed problem. We study its behavior in application to estimating functionals using high-dimensional $Z$-estimators, allowing both the sample size $n$ and problem dimension $d$ to diverge. We begin showing that the plug-in estimator based on the $Z$-estimate suffers from a quadratic breakdown: while it is $\sqrt{n}$-consistent and asymptotically normal whenever $n \gtrsim d^2$, it fails for a broad class of problems whenever $n \lesssim d^2$. We then show that under suitable regularity conditions, applying a jackknife correction yields an estimate that is $\sqrt{n}$-consistent and asymptotically normal whenever $n\gtrsim d^{3/2}$. This provides strong motivation for the use of jackknife in high-dimensional problems where the dimension is moderate relative to sample size. We illustrate consequences of our general theory for various specific $Z$-estimators, including non-linear functionals in linear models; generalized linear models; and the inverse propensity score weighting (IPW) estimate for the average treatment effect, among others.
title When is it worthwhile to jackknife? Breaking the quadratic barrier for Z-estimators
topic Statistics Theory
Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.02909