Empirical Characteristic Function Estimation and Its Applications

Abstract

This paper reviews the method of model-fitting via the empirical characteristic function. The advantage of using this procedure is that one can avoid difficulties inherent in calculating or maximizing the likelihood function. Thus it is a desirable estimation method when the maximum likelihood approach encounters difficulties but the characteristic function has a tractable expression. The basic idea of the empirical characteristic function method is to match the characteristic function derived from the model and the empirical characteristic function obtained from data. Ideas are illustrated by using the methodology to estimate a diffusion model that includes a self-exciting jump component. A Monte Carlo study shows that the finite sample performance of the proposed procedure offers an improvement over a GMM procedure. An application using over 72 years of DJIA daily returns reveals evidence of jump clustering.     

Estimation of the Stochastic Volatility Model by the Empirical Characteristic Function Method

The stochastic volatility model has no closed form for its likelihood and hence the maximum likelihood estimation method is difficult to implement. However, it can be shown that the model has a known characteristic function. As a consequence, the model is estimable via the empirical characteristic function. In this paper, the characteristic function of the model is derived and the estimation procedure is discussed. An application is considered for daily returns of Australian/New Zealand dollar exchange rate. Model checking suggests that the stochastic volatility model together with the empirical characteristic function estimates fit the data well.     

Estimating mixtures of normal distributions via empirical characteristic function

This paper uses the empirical characteristic function (ECF) procedure to estimate the parameters of mixtures of normal distributions. Since the characteristic function is uniformly bounded, the procedure gives estimates that are numerically stable. It is shown that, using Monte Carlo simulation, the finite sample properties of th ECF estimator are very good, even in the case where the popular maximum likelihood estimator fails to exist. An empirical application is illustrated using the monthl excess return of the Nyse value-weighted index.     

Editorial

This paper uses the empirical characteristic function (ECF) procedure to estimate the parameters of mixtures of normal distributions. Since the characteristic function is uniformly bounded, the procedure gives estimates that are numerically stable. It is shown that, using Monte Carlo simulation, the finite sample properties of th ECF estimator are very good, even in the case where the popular maximum likelihood estimator fails to exist. An empirical application is illustrated using the monthl excess return of the Nyse value-weighted index.     

Semiparametric Inference for ROC Curves with Censoring

Abstract.  Comparison of two samples can sometimes be conducted on the basis of analysis of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. A variety of methods of point estimation and confidence intervals for ROC curves have been proposed and well studied. We develop smoothed empirical likelihood-based confidence intervals for ROC curves when the samples are censored and generated from semiparametric models. The resulting empirical log-likelihood function is shown to be asymptotically chi-squared. Simulation studies illustrate that the proposed empirical likelihood confidence interval is advantageous over the normal approximation-based confidence interval. A real data set is analysed using the proposed method.     

Confidence interval of the jump activity index based on empirical likelihood using high frequency data

It is widely accepted that jumps exist in the asset price process. The jump activity index is a natural measure of how frequent the jumps are. Statistical inference of the jump activity index is of importance in determining the type of process that underlies the dynamics of the log price process. In this paper, we implement the empirical likelihood approach to construct the confidence interval of the jump activity index of a pure jump model using high frequency data. Wilks' theorem is established. We also extend the result on Zhao and Wu (2009)'s estimator to the more general framework in this paper. Simulation studies demonstrate the good performance of the empirical likelihood approach. Compared with the existing non-parametric estimator proposed by Zhao and Wu (2009), the empirical likelihood approach gives more accurate coverage probabilities in the simulation studies.     

A characteristic function-based approach to approximate maximum likelihood estimation

The choice of the summary statistics in approximate maximum likelihood is often a crucial issue. We develop a criterion for choosing the most effective summary statistic and then focus on the empirical characteristic function. In the iid setting, the approximating posterior distribution converges to the approximate distribution of the parameters conditional upon the empirical characteristic function. Simulation experiments suggest that the method is often preferable to numerical maximum likelihood. In a time-series framework, no optimality result can be proved, but the simulations indicate that the method is effective in small samples.     

Statistical inference for discretely observed Markov jump processes

Summary.  Likelihood inference for discretely observed Markov jump processes with finite state space is investigated. The existence and uniqueness of the maximum likelihood estimator of the intensity matrix are investigated. This topic is closely related to the imbedding problem for Markov chains. It is demonstrated that the maximum likelihood estimator can be found either by the EM algorithm or by a Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure. When the maximum likelihood estimator does not exist, an estimator can be obtained by using a penalized likelihood function or by the Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure with a suitable prior. The methodology and its implementation are illustrated by examples and simulation studies.     

Uneven two-sided power distributions with applications in econometric models

In this paper we propose and analyze a bounded density function with a jump discontinuity at a threshold. Its properties are presented and a maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) procedure for the threshold location and jump size is developed. The distribution seems be appropriate in the context of financial engineering, production analysis, standard auction models and the equilibrium job search problem. An example of the MLE procedure is given utilizing an i.i.d. sample of standardized log differences of bi-monthly US Certificate Deposit interest rates for the period from 1966-2002. The corresponding time series was constructed using an Auto-Regressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (ARCH) model.     

Improved estimation of the stable laws

Fitting general stable laws to data by maximum likelihood is important but difficult. This is why much research has considered alternative procedures based on empirical characteristic functions. Two problems then are how many values of the characteristic function to select, and how to position them. We provide recommendations for both of these topics. We propose an arithmetic spacing of transform variables, coupled with a recommendation for the location of the variables. It is shown that arithmetic spacing, which is far simpler to implement, closely approximates optimum spacing. The new methods that result are compared in simulation studies with existing methods, including maximum-likelihood. The main conclusion is that arithmetic spacing of the values of the characteristic function, coupled with appropriately limiting the range for these values, improves the overall performance of the regression-type method of Koutrouvelis, which is the standard procedure for estimating general stable law parameters.     

Bias-corrected estimations in varying-coefficient partially nonlinear models with measurement error in the nonparametric part

In this paper, we consider the statistical inference for the varying-coefficient partially nonlinear model with additive measurement errors in the nonparametric part. The local bias-corrected profile nonlinear least-squares estimation procedure for parameter in nonlinear function and nonparametric function is proposed. Then, the asymptotic normality properties of the resulting estimators are established. With the empirical likelihood method, a local bias-corrected empirical log-likelihood ratio statistic for the unknown parameter, and a corrected and residual adjusted empirical log-likelihood ratio for the nonparametric component are constructed. It is shown that the resulting statistics are asymptotically chi-square distribution under some suitable conditions. Some simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed methods. The results indicate that the empirical likelihood method is superior to the profile nonlinear least-squares method in terms of the confidence regions of parameter and point-wise confidence intervals of nonparametric function.     

Empirical Likelihood Inferences for Semiparametric Varying-Coefficient Partially Linear Models with Longitudinal Data

In this article, empirical likelihood inferences for semiparametric varying-coefficient partially linear models with longitudinal data are investigated. We propose a groupwise empirical likelihood procedure to handle the inter-series dependence of the longitudinal data. By using residual-adjustment, an empirical likelihood ratio function for the nonparametric component is constructed, and a nonparametric version Wilks' phenomenons is proved. Compared with methods based on normal approximations, the empirical likelihood does not require consistent estimators for the asymptotic variance and bias. A simulation study is undertaken to assess the finite sample performance of the proposed confidence regions.     

Empirical Likelihood Inference for Longitudinal Data with Missing Response Variables and Error-Prone Covariates

We consider statistical inference for longitudinal partially linear models when the response variable is sometimes missing with missingness probability depending on the covariate that is measured with error. The block empirical likelihood procedure is used to estimate the regression coefficients and residual adjusted block empirical likelihood is employed for the baseline function. This leads us to prove a nonparametric version of Wilk's theorem. Compared with methods based on normal approximations, our proposed method does not require a consistent estimators for the asymptotic variance and bias. An application to a longitudinal study is used to illustrate the procedure developed here. A simulation study is also reported.     

ON LIKELIHOOD ESTIMATION FOR DISCRETELY OBSERVED MARKOV JUMP PROCESSES

The parameter estimation problem for a Markov jump process sampled at equidistant time points is considered here. Unlike the diffusion case where a closed form of the likelihood function is usually unavailable, here an explicit expansion of the likelihood function of the sampled chain is provided. Under suitable ergodicity conditions on the jump process, the consistency and the asymptotic normality of the likelihood estimator are established as the observation period tends to infinity. Simulation experiments are conducted to demonstrate the computational facility of the method.     

A robust and efficient estimation method for nonparametric models with jump points

Nonparametric models with jump points have been considered by many researchers. However, most existing methods based on least squares or likelihood are sensitive when there are outliers or the error distribution is heavy tailed. In this article, a local piecewise-modal method is proposed to estimate the regression function with jump points in nonparametric models, and a piecewise-modal EM algorithm is introduced to estimate the proposed estimator. Under some regular conditions, the large-sample theory is established for the proposed estimators. Several simulations are presented to evaluate the performances of the proposed method, which shows that the proposed estimator is more efficient than the local piecewise-polynomial regression estimator in the presence of outliers or heavy tail error distribution. What is more, the proposed procedure is asymptotically equivalent to the local piecewise-polynomial regression estimator under the assumption that the error distribution is a Gaussian distribution. The proposed method is further illustrated via the sea-level pressures.     

Empirical likelihood-based inference for parameter and nonparametric function in partially nonlinear models

This paper is concerned with statistical inference for partially nonlinear models. Empirical likelihood method for parameter in nonlinear function and nonparametric function is investigated. The empirical log-likelihood ratios are shown to be asymptotically chi-square and then the corresponding confidence intervals are constructed. By the empirical likelihood ratio functions, we also obtain the maximum empirical likelihood estimators of the parameter in nonlinear function and nonparametric function, and prove the asymptotic normality. A simulation study indicates that, compared with normal approximation-based method and the bootstrap method, the empirical likelihood method performs better in terms of coverage probabilities and average length/widths of confidence intervals/bands. An application to a real dataset is illustrated.     

Regression with an infinite number of observations applied to estimating the parameters of the stable distribution using the empirical characteristic function

ABSTRACT

The parameters of stable law parameters can be estimated using a regression based approach involving the empirical characteristic function. One approach is to use a fixed number of points for all parameters of the distribution to estimate the characteristic function. In this work the results are derived where all points in an interval is used to estimate the empirical characteristic function, thus least squares estimators of a linear function of the parameters, using an infinite number of observations. It was found that the procedure performs very good in small samples.     

A Consistent Method of Estimation For The Three-Parameter Gamma Distribution

For the three-parameter gamma distribution, it is known that the method of moments as well as the maximum likelihood method have difficulties such as non-existence in some range of the parameters, convergence problems, and large variability. For this reason, in this article, we propose a method of estimation based on a transformation involving order statistics from the sample. In this method, the estimates always exist uniquely over the entire parameter space, and the estimators also have consistency over the entire parameter space. The bias and mean squared error of the estimators are also examined by means of a Monte Carlo simulation study, and the empirical results show the small-sample superiority in addition to the desirable large sample properties.     

Jackknife Empirical Likelihood for the Accelerated Failure Time Model with Censored Data

Kendall and Gehan estimating functions are commonly used to estimate the regression parameter in accelerated failure time model with censored observations in survival analysis. In this paper, we apply the jackknife empirical likelihood method to overcome the computation difficulty about interval estimation. A Wilks’ theorem of jackknife empirical likelihood for U-statistic type estimating equations is established, which is used to construct the confidence intervals for the regression parameter. We carry out an extensive simulation study to compare the Wald-type procedure, the empirical likelihood method, and the jackknife empirical likelihood method. The proposed jackknife empirical likelihood method has a better performance than the existing methods. We also use a real data set to compare the proposed methods.     

Estimating the Parameters of Stochastic Volatility Models Using Option Price Data

This article describes a maximum likelihood method for estimating the parameters of the standard square-root stochastic volatility model and a variant of the model that includes jumps in equity prices. The model is fitted to data on the S&P 500 Index and the prices of vanilla options written on the index, for the period 1990 to 2011. The method is able to estimate both the parameters of the physical measure (associated with the index) and the parameters of the risk-neutral measure (associated with the options), including the volatility and jump risk premia. The estimation is implemented using a particle filter whose efficacy is demonstrated under simulation. The computational load of this estimation method, which previously has been prohibitive, is managed by the effective use of parallel computing using graphics processing units (GPUs). The empirical results indicate that the parameters of the models are reliably estimated and consistent with values reported in previous work. In particular, both the volatility risk premium and the jump risk premium are found to be significant.