Variable selectio n with quantile regression tree

The quantile regression method proposed by Koenker et al. (1978) focuses on conditional quantiles given by independent variables, and analyzes the relationship between response variable and independent variables at the given quantile. Considering the linear programming used for the estimation of quantile regression coefficients, the model fitting job might be difficult when large data are introduced for analysis. Therefore, dimension reduction (or variable selection) could be a good solution for the quantile regression of large data sets. Regression tree methods are applied to a variable selection for quantile regression in this paper. Real data of Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) players are analyzed following the variable selection approach based on the regression tree. Analysis result shows that a few important variables are selected, which are also meaningful for the given quantiles of salary data of the baseball players.