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\title{Convergence rate examples and theory}

\author{Simen Gaure}
\address{Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research, Oslo, Norway}
\date{March 26, 2013}

\begin{document}
\begin{abstract}
If you use \pkg{lfe} for various tasks, you will notice that some estimations
converge fast, whereas others converge slowly.
Convergence rate of the methods used by \pkg{lfe} is not a walk in the park.
Here are some examples.
\end{abstract}
\maketitle

\section{Introduction}
The method employed by \pkg{lfe} is \emph{the method of alternating projections} (\cite{Halp62}).
The link to this method comes from viewing demeaning of a vector as a \emph{projection} (\cite{GS13}), i.e.
a linear operator \(P\) with the property \(P^2 = P = P^t\). Also, the Kaczmarz-method
used by \pkg{lfe} to solve the sparse resulting system is a variant of alternating projections,
though \(P\) is then an affine projection with \(P^2 = P\), not a linear operator. That is, if
the projection demeaning factor \(i\) is \(P_i\), their intersection which demeans
all factors is \(\lim_{n\to\infty} (P_1 P_2 \cdots P_e)^n\). We can therefore iterate the
operator \(T = P_1 P_2 \cdots P_e\) on a vector \(x\): \(T^n x\), to demean
\(x\).

The convergence rate has been analysed in \cite{DH97} and references
cited therein; there are also newer elaborations, e.g.\ in
\cite{BGM12}. The convergence rate theory is in terms of
generalized angles between subspaces, i.e. the ranges of the projections.
The angle concept may not be immediately intuitive to practitioners of linear
regression methods, so let's have a look at some examples.

\section{Examples}
Our first example has two factors, they are independent of each other, and
of quite high cardinality
<<echo=FALSE>>=
  cores <- as.integer(Sys.getenv('SG_RUN'))
  if(is.na(cores)) options(lfe.threads=1)
@ 
<<>>=
library(lfe)
set.seed(42)
x <- rnorm(100000)
f1 <- sample(10000,length(x),replace=TRUE)
f2 <- sample(10000,length(x),replace=TRUE)
y <- x + cos(f1) + log(f2+1) + rnorm(length(x), sd=0.5)
@ 
We time the first step:
<<>>=
system.time(est <- felm(y ~ x | f1 + f2))
@ 
and the second step
<<>>=
system.time(alpha <- getfe(est))
@ 
We see that there's nothing to complain about in terms of speed.
After all, there are 20,000 dummies in this model.

Now we let \code{f2} have fewer levels:
<<>>=
f2 <- sample(300,length(x),replace=TRUE)
y <- x + cos(f1) + log(f2+1) + rnorm(length(x), sd=0.5)
system.time(est <- felm(y ~ x | f1 + f2))
system.time(alpha <- getfe(est))
@ 
Not much happens, the second step is apparently faster, whereas the first is
about the same. Note that much of the time in the first step is spent
in mundane bookkeeping such as creating a model matrix, not in the demeaning
as such.

Now we make the fixed effects dependent. We do this by ensuring
that for each value of \code{f1} there are at most 10 different values
of \code{f2}. We keep the number of levels
in \code{f2} at 300, as in the previous example. The size of
this problem is exactly the same as in the previous example, but
the factor structure is very different.

<<>>=
f2 <- (f1 + sample(10,length(x),replace=TRUE)) %% 300
y <- x + cos(f1) + log(f2+1) + rnorm(length(x), sd=0.5)
system.time(est <- felm(y ~ x | f1 + f2))
system.time(alpha <- getfe(est))
@ 

The estimation now takes a lot more time.
Indeed, in this case, it is worthwhile
to consider coding \code{f2} as 300 dummies, i.e.\ as an ordinary factor, 
even though there now are \(\approx 300\) vectors to centre, as opposed to two
in the previous examples.
<<>>=
system.time(est <- felm(y ~ x + factor(f2) | f1))
system.time(alpha <- getfe(est))
@ 

We could be tempted to believe that this is the whole story, but it's not.
We may create another example, where each \code{f1} only has 10 different
\code{f2}'s as above, but where the overlap is different. In the above example,
an observation with \code{f1=1} will have \code{f2} drawn from \{2,3,4,\ldots,11\}, whereas
an observation with \code{f1=2} will have \code{f2} in \{3,4,5,\ldots,12\} and so on, i.e.
a considerable overlap. 
We reduce this overlap by creating \code{f2} with a little twist, by 
introducing some unevenly sized ``holes'' by cubing the samples of \code{1:10}.
<<>>=
f2 <- (f1 + sample(10,length(x),replace=TRUE)^3) %% 300
y <- x + cos(f1) + log(f2+1) + rnorm(length(x), sd=0.5)
system.time(est <- felm(y ~ x | f1 + f2))
system.time(alpha <- getfe(est))
nlevels(est[['cfactor']])
@ 
We are now back at approximately the same fast convergence  as before. That is,
convergence rate is not a simple function of data size, counts of levels and so on, even when we 
have only two factors.  

\subsection{Why?}
In the examples above we have played with the structure of the
bipartite graph mentioned in \cite{GS13}, indicating that convergence
rate is not a function solely of the average degree and number of
connected components of the graph.  Intuitively (to the author), the
graph determines the convergence rate, at least in the operator norm
topology, but it is unclear to me whether the rate can be
described in simple graph theoretic terms, let alone in terms of some
intuitive relations between dummy variables.

One could speculate that convergence is related to how tightly
connected the graph is, one such measure is the diameter of the graph, or
the set of lengths of shortest paths.
<<tidy=FALSE>>=
library(igraph)
mkgraph <- function(f1,f2)
  graph.edgelist(cbind(paste('f1',f1),paste('f2',f2)), directed=FALSE)

appxdiam <- function(g) max(shortest.paths(g,sample(V(g),10),sample(V(g),10)))
f2 <- sample(10000,length(x),replace=TRUE)
appxdiam(mkgraph(f1,f2))
f2 <- (f1 + sample(5,length(x),replace=TRUE)^3) %% 300
appxdiam(mkgraph(f1,f2))
f2 <- (f1 + sample(5,length(x),replace=TRUE)) %% 300
appxdiam(mkgraph(f1,f2))
@ 
Loosely speaking, data with ``six degrees of separation'' seems to
converge faster than less well connected networks.  Informal trials,
using \code{demeanlist} instead of \code{felm} to avoid overhead, show
that convergence time grows roughly as the square of the diameter,
also in more varied graphs than the above.  However, the author has
not had the time to attempt to prove such an assertion.

A special case of this is when the second factor is an interaction of several factors in such
a way that there is multicollinearity by design.  This does not introduce any bias problems, but the
speed can often be dramatically improved by removing the known multicollinearities in advance by
collapsing appropriate levels to one.  This will diminish the diameter of the graph.

Note that convergence rate in practice is also a function of the vector to be centred, this can
be seen from the trivial example when the vector is already centred and convergence is
attained after a single iteration.

It is a sad fact of life, shown in \cite{DH97}, that when there are
more than two factors, the convergence rate can not be determined solely by
considering the angles of \emph{pairs} of subspaces. In \cite{BGM12} a generalized
angle between a finite set of subspaces is introduced for the purpose of analysis.  It is
left to the reader to imagine some simple examples with more than two factors. A real
example with three factors can be found in \cite{TPAG13}, and real examples
with up to five factors are treated in the appendix of \cite{GS13} as well as
in \cite{MR12}.

\section{Acceleration schemes}
One point to note is that with more than two factors, even their \emph{order} may
be important for the convergence rate, this has been utilized to speed up convergence
in some cases, picking a random order of the projections for each iteration, or sampling randomly from
the projections. One such scheme is used in \cite{SV09}, and randomization is also treated in 
\cite{BGM12} and the papers they cite. Random shuffling of the equations is now used in the
Kaczmarz-step of \pkg{lfe}, i.e.\ in \code{getfe}, as suggested in \cite{GS13}.

Another acceleration scheme is found in \cite{GK89}, where a line search method
is used in each iteration.  I.e. when a single iteration transforms our vector \(\eta \mapsto \eta'\),
it is fairly easy to find the exact point on the line \(\{\eta + t(\eta' - \eta)\, :\, t \in \RN\}\) which
is closest to the solution.  \pkg{lfe} uses this line search method in \code{felm} (or rather, in \code{demeanlist}).  However, it is noted in \cite{BDHP03} that
this method does not always accelerate convergence.

After publishing \cite{GS13}, the author was made aware that exactly
the same method of alternating projections was arrived at in
\cite[p. 637]{GP10}, though as a technical simplification of the
Gauss-Seidel method of iterated regressions.  It is possible that
acceleration schemes for the Gauss-Seidel method may be applicable,
though the author has not yet looked into it.

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\begin{thebibliography}{10}

\bibitem{BGM12}
C.~Badea, S.~Grivaux, and V.~M{\"u}ller, \emph{The rate of convergence in the
  method of alternating projections}, St. Petersburg Mathematical Journal
  \textbf{23} (2012), 413--434, preprint in arXiv:1006.2047.

\bibitem{BDHP03}
Heinz~H. Bauschke, Frank Deutsch, Hein Hundal, and Sung-Ho Park,
  \emph{Accelerating the convergence of the method of alternating projections},
  Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. \textbf{355} (2003), no.~9, 3433--3461.

\bibitem{DH97}
F.~Deutsch and H.~Hundal, \emph{{The Rate of Convergence for the Method of
  Alternating Projections, II}}, J. Math. Anal. App. \textbf{205} (1997),
  no.~2, {381--405}.

\bibitem{GS13}
S.~Gaure, \emph{{OLS with Multiple High Dimensional Category Variables}},
  Computational Statistics and Data Analysis \textbf{66} (2013), 8--18.

\bibitem{GK89}
W.B. Gearhart and M.~Koshy, \emph{{Acceleration schemes for the method of
  alternating projections}}, {Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics}
  \textbf{26} (1989), no.~3, 235--249.

\bibitem{GP10}
P.~Guimar{\~a}es and P.~Portugal, \emph{A simple feasible procedure to fit
  models with high-dimensional fixed effects}, Stata Journal \textbf{10}
  (2010), no.~4, 628--649(22).

\bibitem{Halp62}
I.~Halperin, \emph{{The Product of Projection Operators}}, Acta Sci. Math.
  (Szeged) \textbf{23} (1962), 96--99.

\bibitem{MR12}
S.~Markussen and K.~R{\o}ed, \emph{Social insurance networks}, IZA Discussion
  Papers 6446, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), March 2012.

\bibitem{SV09}
T.~Strohmer and R.~Vershynin, \emph{{A Randomized Kaczmarz Algorithm with
  Exponential Convergence}}, Journal of Fourier Analysis and Applications
  \textbf{15} (2009), 262--278.

\bibitem{TPAG13}
S.M. Torres, P.~Portugal, J.T. Addison, and P.~Guimar{\~a}es, \emph{{The
  Sources of Wage Variation: A Three-Way High-Dimensional Fixed Effects
  Regression Model.}}, IZA Discussion Paper 7276, Institute for the Study of
  Labor (IZA), March 2013.

\end{thebibliography}

\fi
\end{document}
