Penalized maximum likelihood estimation and variable selection in geostatistics

Abstract

We consider the problem of selecting covariates in spatial linear models with Gaussian process errors. Penalized maximum likelihood estimation (PMLE) that enables simultaneous variable selection and parameter estimation is developed and, for ease of computation, PMLE is approximated by one-step sparse estimation (OSE). To further improve computational efficiency, particularly with large sample sizes, we propose penalized maximum covariance-tapered likelihood estimation (PMLET) and its one-step sparse estimation (OSET). General forms of penalty functions with an emphasis on smoothly clipped absolute deviation are used for penalized maximum likelihood. Theoretical properties of PMLE and OSE, a..