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Spurious factor analysis

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Onatskiy, Alexey 
Wang, Chen 

Abstract

This paper draws parallels between the Principal Components Analysis of factorless high-dimensional nonstationary data and the classical spurious regression. We show that a few of the principal components of such data absorb nearly all the data variation. The corresponding scree plot suggests that the data contain a few factors, which is collaborated by the standard panel information criteria. Furthermore, the Dickey-Fuller tests of the unit root hypothesis applied to the estimated \textquotedblleft idiosyncratic terms\textquotedblright\ often reject, creating an impression that a few factors are responsible for most of the non-stationarity in the data. We warn empirical researchers of these peculiar effects and suggest to always compare the analysis in levels with that in differences.

Description

Keywords

38 Economics, 3801 Applied Economics, 3802 Econometrics

Journal Title

Econometrica: journal of the Econometric Society

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0012-9682
1468-0262

Volume Title

89

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Rights

All rights reserved