396 The Basics of financial economeTrics
of the matrix A. The adjoint of the matrix A, denoted as Adj(A), is the fol-
lowing matrix:
()=
α⋅α⋅α
⋅⋅⋅⋅⋅
α⋅α⋅α
⋅⋅⋅⋅⋅
α⋅α⋅α
=
α⋅α⋅α
⋅⋅⋅⋅⋅
α⋅α⋅α
⋅⋅⋅⋅⋅
α⋅α⋅α
AdjA
jn
iijin
nnjnn
T
n
iini
nnnn
1,11,1,
,1 ,,
,1 ,,
1,12,1 ,1
1, 2, ,
1, 2, ,
The adjoint of a matrix A is therefore the transpose of the matrix obtained
by replacing the elements of A with their cofactors.
If the matrix A is nonsingular, and therefore admits an inverse, it can be
demonstrated that
()
A− =
A
A
1 Adj
A square matrix of order n, A, is said to be orthogonal if the following
property holds:
AA''==AA In
Because in this case A must be of full rank, the transpose of an orthogonal
matrix coincides with its inverse: AA−^1 = '.
Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors
Consider a square matrix A of order n and the set of all n-dimensional vec-
tors. The matrix A is a linear operator on the space of vectors. This means
that A operates on each vector producing another vector subject to the fol-
lowing restriction:
Ax()ab+=yAabxA+ y
Consider now the set of vectors x such that the following property holds:
Ax=λx
Any vector such that the above property holds is called an eigenvector of the
matrix A and the corresponding value of λ is called an eigenvalue.