Many econometric and data-science applications require a reliable estimate of the covariance matrix, such as Markowitz portfolio selection. When the number of variables is of the same magnitude as the number of observations, this constitutes a difficult estimation problem; the sample covariance...

Under rotation-equivariant decision theory, sample covariance matrix eigenvalues can be optimally shrunk by recombining sample eigenvectors with a (potentially nonlinear) function of the unobservable population covariance matrix. The optimal shape of this function reflects the loss/risk that is...

This paper constructs a new estimator for large covariance matrices by drawing a bridge between the classic Stein (1975) estimator in finite samples and recent progress under large-dimensional asymptotics. Our formula is quadratic: it has two shrinkage targets weighted by quadratic functions of...

This paper constructs a new estimator for large covariance matrices by drawing a bridge between the classic Stein (1975) estimator in finite samples and recent progress under large-dimensional asymptotics. The estimator keeps the eigenvectors of the sample covariance matrix and applies shrinkage...

This paper introduces a nonlinear shrinkage estimator of the covariance matrix that does not require recovering the population eigenvalues first. We estimate the sample spectral density and its Hilbert transform directly by smoothing the sample eigenvalues with a variable-bandwidth kernel....

Many statistical applications require the forecast of a random variable of interest over several periods into the future. The sequence of individual forecasts, one period at a time, is called a path forecast, where the term path refers to the sequence of individual future realizations of the...