Orthogonalizing EM: A Design-Based Least Squares Algorithm

The algorithm, called orthogonalizing EM (OEM), works for ordinary least squares (OLS) and can be easily extended to penalized least squares. The main idea of the procedure is to orthogonalize a design matrix by adding new rows and then solve the original problem by embedding the augmented design in a missing data framework.

We establish several attractive theoretical properties concerning OEM. For the OLS with a singular regression matrix, an OEM sequence converges to the Moore-Penrose generalized inverse-based least squares estimator. For ordinary and penalized least squares with various penalties, it converges to a point having grouping coherence for fully aliased regression matrices.