Abstract: | Abstract Least squares (LS) estimator is the best linear unbiased estimator for linear models. It is well known that LS performs poorly in estimation when collinearity is present among regressors. However, it is not fully understood and is even controversial whether LS performs well in prediction. To address this controversy, we study the mean and variance of the prediction squared error (PSE) of LS estimator, and conclude theoretically that although the mean PSE remains invariant regardless of the collinearity, the variance of PSE increases with the collinearity. Thus the prediction error is sensitive to the location in the feature space. |