Quantile regression for compositional covariates

Abstract

Quantile regression is a very important tool to explore the relationship between the response variable and its covariates. Motivated by mean regression with LASSO for compositional covariates proposed by Lin et al. (Biometrika 101 (4):785–97, 2014), we consider quantile regression with no-penalty and penalty function. We develop the computational algorithms based on linear programming. Numerical studies indicate that our methods provide the better alternative than mean regression under many settings, particularly for heavy-tailed or skewed distribution of the error term. Finally, we study the fat data using the proposed method.