Consistent and robust variable selection in regression based on Wald test.

Selection of relevant predictor variables for building a model is an important problem in the multiple linear regression. Variable selection method based on ordinary least squares estimator fails to select the set of relevant variables for building a model in the presence of outliers and leverage points. In this article, we propose a new robust variable selection criterion for selection of relevant variables in the model and establish its consistency property. Performance of the proposed method is evaluated through simulation study and real data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]