Testing High-dimensional Covariance Matrices under the Elliptical Distribution and Beyond

Abstract: We develop tests for high-dimensional covariance matrices under a generalized elliptical model. Our tests are based on a central limit theorem (CLT) for linear spectral statistics of the sample covariance matrix based on self-normalized observations. For testing sphericity, our tests neither assume specific parametric distributions nor involve the kurtosis of data. More generally, we can test against any non-negative definite matrix that can even be not invertible. As an interesting application, we illustrate in empirical studies that our tests can be used to test uncorrelatedness among idiosyncratic returns.