The variance covariance matrix plays a central role in the inferential theories of high dimensional factor models in finance and economics. Popular regularization methods of directly exploiting sparsity are not directly applicable to many financial problems. Classical methods of estimating the...

This paper deals with the estimation of a high-dimensional covariance with a conditional sparsity structure and fast-diverging eigenvalues. By assuming sparse error covariance matrix in an approximate factor model, we allow for the presence of some cross-sectional correlation even after taking...

This paper deals with estimation of high-dimensional covariance with a conditional sparsity structure, which is the composition of a low-rank matrix plus a sparse matrix. By assuming sparse error covariance matrix in a multi-factor model, we allow the presence of the cross-sectional correlation...

Estimating and assessing the risk of a large portfolio is an important topic in financial econometrics and risk management. The risk is often estimated by a substitution of a good estimator of the volatility matrix. However, the accuracy of such a risk estimator for large portfolios is largely...

This paper provides a selective overview on the recent development of factor models and their applications in econometric learning. We focus on the perspective of the low-rank structure of factor models, and particularly draws attentions to estimating the model from the low-rank recovery point...

This paper introduces a Projected Principal Component Analysis (Projected-PCA), which is based on the projection of the data matrix onto a given linear space before performing the principal component analysis. When it applies to high-dimensional factor analysis, the projection removes...

We propose a novel technique to boost the power of testing a high-dimensional vector $H:\theta=0$ against sparse alternatives where the null hypothesis is violated only by a couple of components. Existing tests based on quadratic forms such as the Wald statistic often suffer from low powers due...

Estimating and assessing the risk of a large portfolio is an important topic in financial econometrics and risk management. The risk is often estimated by a substitution of a good estimator of the volatility matrix. However, the accuracy of such a risk estimator for large portfolios is largely...

Estimations and applications of factor models often rely on the crucial condition that the number of latent factors is consistently estimated, which in turn also requires that factors be relatively strong, data are stationary and weak serial dependence, and the sample size be fairly large,...

We study factor models augmented by observed covariates that have explanatory powers on the unknown factors. In financial factor models, the unknown factors can be reasonably well explained by a few observable proxies, such as the Fama-French factors. In diffusion index forecasts, identified...