Adaptive post-Dantzig estimation and prediction for non-sparse "large $p$ and small $n$" models

Abstract

For consistency (even oracle properties) of estimation and model prediction, almost all existing methods of variable/feature selection critically depend on sparsity of models. However, for ``large $p$ and small $n$" models sparsity assumption is hard to check and particularly, when this assumption is violated, the consistency of all existing estimations is usually impossible because working models selected by existing methods such as the LASSO and the Dantzig selector are usually biased. To attack this problem, we in this paper propose adaptive post-Dantzig estimation and model prediction. Here the adaptability means that the consistency based on the newly proposed method is adaptive to non-sparsity of model, choice of shrinkage tuning parameter and dimension of predictor vector. The idea is that after a sub-model as a working model is determined by the Dantzig selector, we construct a globally unbiased sub-model by choosing suitable instrumental variables and nonparametric adjustment. The new estimation of the parameters in the sub-model can be of the asymptotic normality. The consistent estimator, together with the selected sub-model and adjusted model, improves model predictions. Simulation studies show that the new approach has the significant improvement of estimation and prediction accuracies over the Gaussian Dantzig selector and other classical methods have.