The Message in Daily Exchange Rates: A Conditional-Variance Tale

Formal testing procedures confirm the presence of a unit root in the autoregressive polynomial of the univariate time series representation of daily exchange-rate data. The first differences of the logarithms of daily spot rates are approximately uncorrelated through time, and a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model with daily dummy variables and conditionally t-distributed errors is found to provide a good representation to the leptokurtosis and time-dependent conditional heteroscedasticity. The parameter estimates and characteristics of the models are found to be very similar for six different currencies. These apparent stylized facts carry over to weekly, fortnightly, and monthly data in which the degree of leptokurtosis and time-dependent heteroscedasticity is reduced as the length of the sampling interval increases.     

A Starting Point for Navigating the World of Daily Fantasy Basketball

Fantasy sports, particularly the daily variety in which new lineups are selected each day, are a rapidly growing industry. The two largest companies in the daily fantasy business, DraftKings and Fanduel, have been valued as high as $2 billion. This research focuses on the development of a complete system for daily fantasy basketball, including both the prediction of player performance and the construction of a team. First, a Bayesian random effects model is used to predict an aggregate measure of daily NBA player performance. The predictions are then used to construct teams under the constraints of the game, typically related to a fictional salary cap and player positions. Permutation based and K-nearest neighbors approaches are compared in terms of the identification of “successful” teams—those who would be competitive more often than not based on historical data. We demonstrate the efficacy of our system by comparing our predictions to those from a well-known analytics website, and by simulating daily competitions over the course of the 2015–2016 season. Our results show an expected profit of approximately $9,000 on an initial $500 investment using the K-nearest neighbors approach, a 36% increase relative to using the permutation-based approach alone. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

A fast algorithm for short term electric load forecasting by a hidden semi-markov process

The paper proposes an alternative algorithm to implement the current manual choosing mechanism of energy companies whose dedicated department has a library of electric load models and one best model is chosen manually everyday for daily forecast. The proposed algorithm is a combination of an estimation of change point, and a fast ECM algorithm based on the empirical probability function, as well as methods of a hidden markov chain. We train parameters of the proposed algorithm based on a historical dataset consisting of loads, exogenous information such as temperature, and the daily recommended best model which is unavailable sometimes. Simulations and a test on a real-world dataset show that compared with other state-of-art algorithms, the proposed algorithm is fast and efficient for short-term electric load forecasting. An implement to the proposed algorithm written in Matlab is provided in supplement file.     

Teaching a chance course

We read in our daily newspapers and see on television reports on issues that use probability and statistics such as: the use of DNA fingerprinting in the courts, testing for aids, the interpretation of economic indicators, polls, medical trials etc. We describe a course called Chance whose aim is to teach the basic concepts of probability and statistics in the context of current issues and to make students better able to interpret and critically analyze what they read in the news about issues that affect their daily lives     

Specification and testing of multiplicative time-varying GARCH models with applications

In this article, we develop a specification technique for building multiplicative time-varying GARCH models of Amado and Teräsvirta (2008, 2013). The variance is decomposed into an unconditional and a conditional component such that the unconditional variance component is allowed to evolve smoothly over time. This nonstationary component is defined as a linear combination of logistic transition functions with time as the transition variable. The appropriate number of transition functions is determined by a sequence of specification tests. For that purpose, a coherent modelling strategy based on statistical inference is presented. It is heavily dependent on Lagrange multiplier type misspecification tests. The tests are easily implemented as they are entirely based on auxiliary regressions. Finite-sample properties of the strategy and tests are examined by simulation. The modelling strategy is illustrated in practice with two real examples: an empirical application to daily exchange rate returns and another one to daily coffee futures returns.     

Multiple nonlinear regression of the Markovian arrival process for estimating the daily global solar radiation

Abstract

Solar radiation is a global ecological phenomenon that affects life everywhere. In this study, a new statistical method, called the Quartiles-Moment's method, is proposed to estimate the scale and shape parameters of the exponentiated Gumbel maximum distribution (EGMD). The Kolomogorov–Smirnov test and the percentiles of the dataset are thus used to fit the dataset of the daily global solar radiation and the corresponding daily maximum temperature with EGMD. Thence, multiple nonlinear regression of the daily global solar radiation and the corresponding daily maximum temperature are produced and compared with the real dataset accordingly.     

Should Macroeconomic Forecasters Use Daily Financial Data and How?

We introduce easy-to-implement, regression-based methods for predicting quarterly real economic activity that use daily financial data and rely on forecast combinations of mixed data sampling (MIDAS) regressions. We also extract a novel small set of daily financial factors from a large panel of about 1000 daily financial assets. Our analysis is designed to elucidate the value of daily financial information and provide real-time forecast updates of the current (nowcasting) and future quarters of real GDP growth.     

互联网企业广告收入预测研究——基于低频数据的神经网络和时间序列组合模型

神经网络模型对大样本时间序列的拟合效果优于传统时间序列模型,但对于年度、月度、日度等低频时间序列的预测则难以发挥其优势。鉴于此,本文应用传统时间序列模型和神经网络模型,建立Holtwinters-BP组合模型,利用Holtwinters模型分别拟合各解释变量序列,利用BP模型拟合解释变量和自变量的非线性关系,基于某社交新闻类APP的日广告收入数据进行互联网企业广告收入预测研究。通过与循环神经网络(RNN)模型、长短期记忆神经网络(LSTM)模型等预测结果的对比发现:Holtwinters-BP组合模型的预测精度和稳定性更高;证明多维变量对于广告收入的显著影响,多变量模型的预测准确性高于单变量模型;构建的Holtwinters-BP组合模型对于低频数据预测有较好的有效性和适用性。     

基于心理账户的习惯形成

本文将心理学中心理账户的概念引入习惯形成理论,将心理账户分为日常消费账户和一次性大额消费账户。假设中国城镇居民的消费特征是在保持日常生活消费支出平稳增长的前提下,将收入中扣除日常消费支出的部分储蓄起来,以应付各种一次性大额消费支出。理论模型和经验研究表明：中国城镇居民一次性大额消费表现出耐久性和奢侈品消费特征,从理论上回答了为什么收入的上升有助于启动热点消费。同时,这一研究结论可以为近年来汽车消费的快速增长等经济现象提供一个理论解释。     

Bayesian estimation of the Hurst parameter of fractional Brownian motion

The primary purpose of this study was to find Bayesian estimates for the Hurst dimension of a Fractional Brownian motion with a Beta prior when the process is observed at discrete times. Overestimation is observed though the overestimation is less severe as real H goes up. In addition, the estimated H decreases as Beta parameters go up given an Alpha value. In contrast, the estimated H increases as Alpha parameters go up given a Beta value. For the real-world data, the 2011 daily Taiwan stock index was used and the estimated Hurst index was 0.21.     

Normal mixture method for stock daily returns over different sub-periods

In this paper, the normal mixture model, as an alternative distribution, is utilized to represent the characteristics of stock daily returns over different bull and bear markets. Firstly, we conduct the normality test for the return data and compare the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistics of normal mixture models with different components. Secondly, we analyze the likely reasons why parameters change over different sub-periods. Our empirical examination proves that majority of the data series reject the normality assumption and mixture models with three components can model the behavior of daily returns more appropriately and steadily. This result has both statistical and economic significance.     

Summer temperature effects on deaths and hospital admissions among the elderly population in two Italian cities

In developed countries the effects of climate on health status are mainly due to temperature. Our analysis is aimed to deepen statistically the relationship between summer climate conditions and daily frequency of health episodes: deaths or hospital admissions. We expect to find a U-shaped relationship between temperature and frequencies of events occurring in summer regarding the elderly population resident in Milano and Brescia. We use as covariates hourly records of temperature recorded at observation sites located in Milano and Brescia. The analysis is performed using Generalized Additive Models (GAM), where the response variable is the daily number of events, which varies as a possibly non-linear function of meteorological variables measured on the same or previous day. We consider separate models for Milano and Brescia and then we compare temperature effects among the two towns and among different age classes. Moreover we consider separate models for all diagnosed events, for those due to respiratory disease and those due to circulatory pathologies. Model selection is a central problem, the basic methods used are the UBRE and GCV criteria but, instead of conditioning all final conclusions on the best model according to the chosen criterion, we investigated the effect of model selection by implementing a bootstrap procedure.     

Particle Learning for Fat-Tailed Distributions

It is well known that parameter estimates and forecasts are sensitive to assumptions about the tail behavior of the error distribution. In this article, we develop an approach to sequential inference that also simultaneously estimates the tail of the accompanying error distribution. Our simulation-based approach models errors with a t_ν-distribution and, as new data arrives, we sequentially compute the marginal posterior distribution of the tail thickness. Our method naturally incorporates fat-tailed error distributions and can be extended to other data features such as stochastic volatility. We show that the sequential Bayes factor provides an optimal test of fat-tails versus normality. We provide an empirical and theoretical analysis of the rate of learning of tail thickness under a default Jeffreys prior. We illustrate our sequential methodology on the British pound/U.S. dollar daily exchange rate data and on data from the 2008–2009 credit crisis using daily S&P500 returns. Our method naturally extends to multivariate and dynamic panel data.     

Analysis of Poisson varying-coefficient models with autoregression

In the regression analysis of time series of event counts, it is of interest to account for serial dependence that is likely to be present among such data as well as a nonlinear interaction between the expected event counts and predictors as a function of some underlying variables. We thus develop a Poisson autoregressive varying-coefficient model, which introduces autocorrelation through a latent process and allows regression coefficients to nonparametrically vary as a function of the underlying variables. The nonparametric functions for varying regression coefficients are estimated with data-driven basis selection, thereby avoiding overfitting and adapting to curvature variation. An efficient posterior sampling scheme is devised to analyse the proposed model. The proposed methodology is illustrated using simulated data and daily homicide data in Cali, Colombia.     

A novel Hybrid RBF Neural Networks model as a forecaster

We introduce a novel predictive statistical modeling technique called Hybrid Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (HRBF-NN) as a forecaster. HRBF-NN is a flexible forecasting technique that integrates regression trees, ridge regression, with radial basis function (RBF) neural networks (NN). We develop a new computational procedure using model selection based on information-theoretic principles as the fitness function using the genetic algorithm (GA) to carry out subset selection of best predictors. Due to the dynamic and chaotic nature of the underlying stock market process, as is well known, the task of generating economically useful stock market forecasts is difficult, if not impossible. HRBF-NN is well suited for modeling complex non-linear relationships and dependencies between the stock indices. We propose HRBF-NN as our forecaster and a predictive modeling tool to study the daily movements of stock indices. We show numerical examples to determine a predictive relationship between the Istanbul Stock Exchange National 100 Index (ISE100) and seven other international stock market indices. We select the best subset of predictors by minimizing the information complexity (ICOMP) criterion as the fitness function within the GA. Using the best subset of variables we construct out-of-sample forecasts for the ISE100 index to determine the daily directional movements. Our results obtained demonstrate the utility and the flexibility of HRBF-NN as a clever predictive modeling tool for highly dependent and nonlinear data.     

上海股票市场的基于小波去噪的混沌性检验

由于经济混沌需要大样本、低噪声的时间序列,所以文章首先利用小波变换对上证指数日收盘价序列进行去噪处理,然后由去噪后的日收盘价序列计算出日收益率序列,姑且称其为去噪后的日收益率序列,并把它同未经过去噪处理得到的日收益率序列进行比较,发现该方法较好地保留了序列自身固有的特性,只是剔除了由于日常细微波动产生的噪声,为有效地探测我国上海证券市场的混沌性打下了基础。最后分别计算去噪前后收益率的关联维数和Lyapunov指数,发现小波去噪并未改变上海证券市场的混沌性,但是去噪后的市场的复杂度要小于去噪前的市场的复杂度。所以进行混沌性探测的时候必须对数据进行去噪处理。     

Cocaine Dependence Treatment Data: Methods for Measurement Error Problems With Predictors Derived From Stationary Stochastic Processes

In a cocaine dependence treatment study, we use linear and nonlinear regression models to model posttreatment cocaine craving scores and first cocaine relapse time. A subset of the covariates are summary statistics derived from baseline daily cocaine use trajectories, such as baseline cocaine use frequency and average daily use amount. These summary statistics are subject to estimation error and can therefore cause biased estimators for the regression coefficients. Unlike classical measurement error problems, the error we encounter here is heteroscedastic with an unknown distribution, and there are no replicates for the error-prone variables or instrumental variables. We propose two robust methods to correct for the bias: a computationally efficient method-of-moments-based method for linear regression models and a subsampling extrapolation method that is generally applicable to both linear and nonlinear regression models. Simulations and an application to the cocaine dependence treatment data are used to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed methods. Asymptotic theory and variance estimation for the proposed subsampling extrapolation method and some additional simulation results are described in the online supplementary material.     

Joint modeling of bottle use,daily milk intake from bottles,and daily energy intake in toddlers

The current study follows an educational intervention on bottle-weaning to simultaneously evaluate effects of the bottle-weaning intervention on reducing bottle use, daily milk intake from bottles, and daily energy intake in toddlers aged 11–13 months. In this paper, we propose to use shared parameter models and random effects models to model these outcomes jointly. Our joint models consist of two submodels: a two-part submodel for modeling the odds of bottle use and the intensity of daily milk intake from bottles, and a linear mixed submodel for modeling the intensity of daily energy intake. The two submodels are linked by either shared random effects or separate but correlated random effects. We investigate whether the intervention effects, parameter estimates, and model fit differ between shared parameter models and random effects models.     

Foreign Exchange Intervention by the Bank of Japan: Bayesian Analysis Using a Bivariate Stochastic Volatility Model

A bivariate stochastic volatility model is employed to measure the effect of intervention by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) on daily returns and volume in the USD/YEN foreign exchange market. Missing observations are accounted for, and a data-based Wishart prior for the precision matrix of the errors to the transition equation that is in line with the likelihood is suggested. Empirical results suggest there is strong conditional heteroskedasticity in the mean-corrected volume measure, as well as contemporaneous correlation in the errors to both the observation and transition equations. A threshold model is used for the BOJ reaction function, which is estimated jointly with the bivariate stochastic volatility model via Markov chain Monte Carlo. This accounts for endogeneity between volatility in the market and the BOJ reaction function, something that has hindered much previous empirical analysis in the literature on central bank intervention. The empirical results suggest there was a shift in behavior by the BOJ, with a movement away from a policy of market stabilization and toward a role of support for domestic monetary policy objectives. Throughout, we observe “leaning against the wind” behavior, something that is a feature of most previous empirical analysis of central bank intervention. A comparison with a bivariate EGARCH model suggests that the bivariate stochastic volatility model produces estimates that better capture spikes in in-sample volatility. This is important in improving estimates of a central bank reaction function because it is at these periods of high daily volatility that central banks more frequently intervene.     

Foreign Exchange Intervention by the Bank of Japan: Bayesian Analysis Using a Bivariate Stochastic Volatility Model

A bivariate stochastic volatility model is employed to measure the effect of intervention by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) on daily returns and volume in the USD/YEN foreign exchange market. Missing observations are accounted for, and a data-based Wishart prior for the precision matrix of the errors to the transition equation that is in line with the likelihood is suggested. Empirical results suggest there is strong conditional heteroskedasticity in the mean-corrected volume measure, as well as contemporaneous correlation in the errors to both the observation and transition equations. A threshold model is used for the BOJ reaction function, which is estimated jointly with the bivariate stochastic volatility model via Markov chain Monte Carlo. This accounts for endogeneity between volatility in the market and the BOJ reaction function, something that has hindered much previous empirical analysis in the literature on central bank intervention. The empirical results suggest there was a shift in behavior by the BOJ, with a movement away from a policy of market stabilization and toward a role of support for domestic monetary policy objectives. Throughout, we observe “leaning against the wind” behavior, something that is a feature of most previous empirical analysis of central bank intervention. A comparison with a bivariate EGARCH model suggests that the bivariate stochastic volatility model produces estimates that better capture spikes in in-sample volatility. This is important in improving estimates of a central bank reaction function because it is at these periods of high daily volatility that central banks more frequently intervene.