Least clipped absolute deviation for robust regression using skipped median

Skipped median is more robust than median when outliers are not symmetrically distributed. In this work, we propose a novel algorithm to estimate the skipped median. The idea of skipped median and the new algorithm are extended to regression problem, which is called least clipped absolute deviation (LCAD). Since our proposed algorithm for nonconvex LCAD optimization makes use of convex least absolute deviation (LAD) procedure as a subroutine, regularizations developed for LAD can be directly applied, without modification, to LCAD as well. Numerical studies demonstrate that skipped median and LCAD are useful and outperform their counterparts, median and LAD, when outliers intervene asymmetrically. Some extensions of the idea for skipped median and LCAD are discussed.