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Lasso uses cross-validation to determine both the number of included predictors and the degree of shrinkage to avoid over-fitting. I have used the glmnet package to do this. 

    fit=glmnet(x,y)
    cvob1= cv.glmnet(x,y) 
    lambda1=cvob1$lambda.min  
    cvob2=cv.glmnet(x,y)
    lambda2=cvob2$lambda.min

There is a high possibility that lambda1 and lambda2 are different. I need to get a proper lambda.min for the next step to obtain fitted values for the sparse solution to the model:

coef(fit,s=cvob1$lambda.min)

How can I decide which lambda to use? Should I repeat the cv.glmnet() for many times? How many time should I go for?

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CV is a random process, which is why you are getting different lambda.mins. But they should be close to eachother. If you want a singular, reproducible lambda, try setting a seed:

set.seed(1234)

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  • $\begingroup$ would different lambdas affect my next step: coef(fit,s=cvob1$lambda.min) $\endgroup$
    – ay__ya
    Commented Mar 14, 2018 at 19:52
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, since different lambdas would yield different coefficients. (Remember large $\lambda$, small $\|\beta\|$). $\endgroup$
    – Tim Atreides
    Commented Mar 15, 2018 at 11:13
  • $\begingroup$ setting a seed for cv.glmnet won't produce identical results unless the foldid's are set manually $\endgroup$
    – David
    Commented Feb 24, 2021 at 21:21

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