Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 May 2019
In this article, using a shrinkage estimator, we propose a penalized quasi-maximum likelihood estimator (PQMLE) to estimate a large system of equations in seemingly unrelated regression models, where the number of equations is large relative to the sample size. We develop the asymptotic properties of the PQMLE for both the error covariance matrix and model coefficients. In particular, we derive the asymptotic distribution of the coefficient estimator and the convergence rate of the estimated covariance matrix in terms of the Frobenius norm. The model selection consistency of the covariance matrix estimator is also established. Simulation results show that when the number of equations is large relative to the sample size and the error covariance matrix is sparse, the PQMLE outperforms other contemporary estimators.
Thanks to Liangjun Su (co-editor) and two anonymous referees for their insightful comments and references, which have helped to greatly improve the earlier version of this article. We are grateful to Peter C. B. Phillips, M. Hashem Pesaran and seminar and conference participants from Singapore Management University, Peking University, SETA 2014, 4th IAAE conference, etc., for their helpful comments. Qingliang Fan acknowledges support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grant 71671149, 71631004 (Key Project), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project No. 20720171042).