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 investigates the effect of characteristic-based time-varying factor beta on the diffusion-index type forecast. Specifically, the factor beta includes two distinct components: the "instrumental beta'' is a function of some observed stable variables, while the "idiosyncratic beta''...

This article provides a selective overview of the recent developments in factor models and their applications in econometric learning. We focus on the perspective of the low-rank structure of factor models and particularly draw attention to estimating the model from the low-rank recovery point...

It has been well known in financial economics that factor betas depend on observed instruments such as firm specific characteristics and macroeconomic variables, and a key object of interest is the effect of instruments on the factor betas. One of the key features of our model is that we specify...

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...