Optimal subsampling for large-scale quantile regression

Abstract To deal with massive data sets, subsampling is known as an effective method which can significantly reduce computational costs in estimating model parameters. In this article, an efficient subsampling method is developed for large-scale quantile regression via Poisson sampling framework, which can solve the memory constraint problem imposed by big data. Under some mild conditions, large sample properties for the estimator involving the weak and strong consistencies, and asymptotic normality are established. Furthermore, the optimal subsampling probabilities are derived according to the A-optimality criterion. It is shown that the estimator based on the optimal subsampling asymptotically achieves a smaller variance than that by the uniform random subsampling. The proposed method is illustrated and evaluated through numerical analyses on both simulated and real data sets.