On testing sphericity and identity of a covariance matrix with large dimensions

Abstract

Tests for certain covariance structures, including sphericity, are presented when the data may be high-dimensional but not necessarily normal. The tests are formulated as functions of location-invariant estimators defined as U-statistics of higher order kernels. Under a few mild assumptions, the limit distributions of the tests are shown to be normal. The accuracy of the tests is demonstrated by simulations.