Integrated conditional moment test and beyond: when the number of covariates is divergent

Abstract: The classic integrated conditional moment test is a promising method for testing regression model misspecification. However, it severely suffers from the curse of dimensionality. To extend it to handle the testing problem for parametric multi-index models with diverging number of covariates, we investigate three issues in inference in this paper. First, we study the consistency and asymptotically linear representation of the least squares estimator of the parameter matrix at faster rates of divergence than those in the literature for nonlinear models. Second, we propose, via sufficient dimension reduction techniques, an adaptive-to-model version of the integrated conditional moment test. We study the asymptotic properties of the new test under both the null and alternative hypothesis to examine its ability of significance level maintenance and its sensitivity to the global and local alternatives that are distinct from the null at the fastest possible rate in hypothesis testing. Third, we derive the consistency of the bootstrap approximation for the new test in the diverging dimension setting. The numerical studies show that the new test can very much enhance the performance of the original ICM test in high-dimensional scenarios. We also apply the test to a real data set for illustrations.