Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Matsumura, Yasuyuki, Tachibana, Chisato
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10419
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866912757818851328
author Matsumura, Yasuyuki
Tachibana, Chisato
author_facet Matsumura, Yasuyuki
Tachibana, Chisato
contents We study the long-standing problem of determining the number of principal components in econometric applications from a selective inference perspective. We consider i.i.d. observations from a $p$-dimensional random vector with $p<n$ and define the ``true'' dimensionality as the rank of the population covariance matrix. Building on the sequential testing viewpoint, we propose a data-driven procedure that estimates $\rank(Σ_X)$ using a statistic that depends on the eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix. While the test statistic shares the functional form of its fixed design counterpart Choi et al. (2017), our analysis departs from the non-stochastic setting by treating the design as random and by avoiding parametric Gaussian assumptions. Under a locally defined null hypothesis, we establish asymptotically exact type~I error controls in the sequential testing procedure, with simulation results indicating empirical validity of the proposed method.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_10419
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Principal component analysis in econometrics: a selective inference perspective
Matsumura, Yasuyuki
Tachibana, Chisato
Econometrics
Applications
We study the long-standing problem of determining the number of principal components in econometric applications from a selective inference perspective. We consider i.i.d. observations from a $p$-dimensional random vector with $p<n$ and define the ``true'' dimensionality as the rank of the population covariance matrix. Building on the sequential testing viewpoint, we propose a data-driven procedure that estimates $\rank(Σ_X)$ using a statistic that depends on the eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix. While the test statistic shares the functional form of its fixed design counterpart Choi et al. (2017), our analysis departs from the non-stochastic setting by treating the design as random and by avoiding parametric Gaussian assumptions. Under a locally defined null hypothesis, we establish asymptotically exact type~I error controls in the sequential testing procedure, with simulation results indicating empirical validity of the proposed method.
title Principal component analysis in econometrics: a selective inference perspective
topic Econometrics
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10419