Combining Ridge Regression and Latent Variable Regression

Ridge regression (RR), principal component regression (PCR) and partial least squares regression (PLS) are among popular regression methods for collinear data. While RR adds a small quantity called ridge constant to the diagonal of X'X to stabilize the matrix inversion and regression coefficients, PCR and PLS use latent variables derived from original variables to circumvent the collinearity problem. One problem of PCR and PLS is that they are very sensitive to overfitting. A new regression method is presented by combining RR and PCR and PLS, respectively, in a unified manner. It is intended to provide better predictive ability and improved stability for regression models. A real-world data from NIR spectroscopy is used to investigate the performance of the newly developed regression method.