Multivariate tail conditional expectation for scale mixtures of skew-normal distribution

In practice, a financial or actuarial data set may be a skewed or heavy-tailed and this motivates us to study a class of distribution functions in risk management theory that provide more information about these characteristics resulting in a more accurate risk analysis. In this paper, we consider a multivariate tail conditional expectation (MTCE) for multivariate scale mixtures of skew-normal (SMSN) distributions. This class of distributions contains skewed distributions and some members of this class can be used to analyse heavy-tailed data sets. We also provide a closed form for TCE in a univariate skew-normal distribution framework. Numerical examples are also provided for illustration.     

Multivariate Birnbaum–Saunders distribution: properties and associated inference

The univariate fatigue life distribution proposed by Birnbaum and Saunders [A new family of life distributions. J Appl Probab. 1969;6:319–327] has been used quite effectively to model times to failure for materials subject to fatigue and for modelling lifetime data and reliability problems. In this article, we introduce a Birnbaum–Saunders (BS) distribution in the multivariate setting. The new multivariate model arises in the context of conditionally specified distributions. The proposed multivariate model is an absolutely continuous distribution whose marginals are univariate BS distributions. General properties of the multivariate BS distribution are derived and the estimation of the unknown parameters by maximum likelihood is discussed. Further, the Fisher's information matrix is determined. Applications to real data of the proposed multivariate distribution are provided for illustrative purposes.     

A class of weighted multivariate distributions related to doubly truncated multivariate t-distribution

This article introduces a class of weighted multivariate t-distributions, which includes the multivariate generalized Student t and multivariate skew t as its special members. This class is defined as the marginal distribution of a doubly truncated multivariate generalized Student t-distribution and studied from several aspects such as weighting of probability density functions, inequality constrained multivariate Student t-distributions, scale mixtures of multivariate normal and probabilistic representations. The relationships among these aspects are given, and various properties of the class are also discussed. Necessary theories and two applications are provided.     

On the characteristic function of multivariate Student t-distribution

The characteristic function of the multivariate Student t-distribution is obtained, and it is shown that this characteristic function has the pedogogical virtue of reducing the multivariate problem to the analogous univariate problem. Applications of the characteristic function are discussed.     

Pareto Poisson–Lindley distribution with applications

A new lifetime distribution is introduced based on compounding Pareto and Poisson–Lindley distributions. Several statistical properties of the distribution are established, including behavior of the probability density function and the failure rate function, heavy- and long-right tailedness, moments, the Laplace transform, quantiles, order statistics, moments of residual lifetime, conditional moments, conditional moment generating function, stress–strength parameter, Rényi entropy and Song's measure. We get maximum-likelihood estimators of the distribution parameters and investigate the asymptotic distribution of the estimators via Fisher's information matrix. Applications of the distribution using three real data sets are presented and it is shown that the distribution fits better than other related distributions in practical uses.     

Graphical models for skew-normal variates

This paper explores the usefulness of the multivariate skew-normal distribution in the context of graphical models. A slight extension of the family recently discussed by Azzalini & Dalla Valle (1996 ) and Azzalini & Capitanio (1999 ) is described, the main motivation being the additional property of closure under conditioning. After considerations of the main probabilistic features, the focus of the paper is on the construction of conditional independence graphs for skew-normal variables. Necessary and sufficient conditions for conditional independence are stated, and the admissible structures of a graph under restriction on univariate marginal distribution are studied. Finally, parameter estimation is considered. It is shown how the factorization of the likelihood function according to a graph can be rearranged in order to obtain a parameter based factorization.     

Combined multiple testing of multivariate survival times by censored empirical likelihood

In each study testing the survival experience of one or more populations, one must not only choose an appropriate class of tests, but further an appropriate weight function. As the optimal choice depends on the true shape of the hazard ratio, one is often not capable of getting the best results with respect to a specific dataset. For the univariate case several methods were proposed to conquer this problem. However, most of the interesting datasets contain multivariate observations nowadays. In this work we propose a multivariate version of a method based on multiple constrained censored empirical likelihood where the constraints are formulated as linear functionals of the cumulative hazard functions. By considering the conditional hazards, we take the correlation between the components into account with the goal of obtaining a test that exhibits a high power irrespective of the shape of the hazard ratio under the alternative hypothesis.     

A graphical test for local self-similarity in univariate data

The Pareto distribution, or power-law distribution, has long been used to model phenomena in many fields, including wildfire sizes, earthquake seismic moments and stock price changes. Recent observations have brought the fit of the Pareto into question, however, particularly in the upper tail where it often overestimates the frequency of the largest events. This paper proposes a graphical self-similarity test specifically designed to assess whether a Pareto distribution fits better than a tapered Pareto or another alternative. Unlike some model selection methods, this graphical test provides the advantage of highlighting where the model fits well and where it breaks down. Specifically, for data that seem to be better modeled by the tapered Pareto or other alternatives, the test assesses the degree of local self-similarity at each value where the test is computed. The basic properties of the graphical test and its implementation are discussed, and applications of the test to seismological, wildfire, and financial data are considered.     

Bivariate distributions with second kind beta conditionals

In this paper the most general bivariate distributions with second kind beta conditionals is fully characterized. This family is closed under inversions and the conditional moments are shown to be rational functions of the conditioned variable. Two subfamilies of dependent distributions is shown to have second kind beta marginals too. Finally, as a particular case, the most general bivariate distribution with second kind Pareto conditionals is characterized.     

An asymmetric multivariate weibull distribution

Abstract

A class of multivariate laws as an extension of univariate Weibull distribution is presented. A well known representation of the asymmetric univariate Laplace distribution is used as the starting point. This new family of distributions exhibits some similarities to the multivariate normal distribution. Properties of this class of distributions are explored including moments, correlations, densities and simulation algorithms. The distribution is applied to model bivariate exchange rate data. The fit of the proposed model seems remarkably good. Parameters are estimated and a bootstrap study performed to assess the accuracy of the estimators.     

Most Likely Transformations

We propose and study properties of maximum likelihood estimators in the class of conditional transformation models. Based on a suitable explicit parameterization of the unconditional or conditional transformation function, we establish a cascade of increasingly complex transformation models that can be estimated, compared and analysed in the maximum likelihood framework. Models for the unconditional or conditional distribution function of any univariate response variable can be set up and estimated in the same theoretical and computational framework simply by choosing an appropriate transformation function and parameterization thereof. The ability to evaluate the distribution function directly allows us to estimate models based on the exact likelihood, especially in the presence of random censoring or truncation. For discrete and continuous responses, we establish the asymptotic normality of the proposed estimators. A reference software implementation of maximum likelihood‐based estimation for conditional transformation models that allows the same flexibility as the theory developed here was employed to illustrate the wide range of possible applications.     

Estimation of scale parameters in mixture distributions

Simultaneous estimation of scale parameters is considered in mixture distributions under squared-error loss. A general class of estimators is obtained which dominates the componentwise best multiple estimators and the moment estimators. As special cases, improved estimators are obtained for the multivariate t-distribution and the p-variate Lomax distribution.     

A family of models for uniform and serial dependence in repeated measurements studies

Data arising from a randomized double-masked clinical trial for multiple sclerosis have provided particularly variable longitudinal repeated measurements responses. Specific models for such data, other than those based on the multivariate normal distribution, would be a valuable addition to the applied statistician's toolbox. A useful family of multivariate distributions can be generated by substituting the integrated intensity of one distribution into a second (outer) distribution. The parameters in the second distribution are then used to create a dependence structure among observations on a unit. These may either be a form of serial dependence for longitudinal data or of uniform dependence within clusters. These are respectively analogous to the Kalman filter of state space models and to copulas, but they have the major advantage that they do not require any explicit integration. One useful outer distribution for constructing such multivariate distributions is the Pareto distribution. Certain special models based on it have previously been used in event history analysis, but those considered here have much wider application.     

A class of rectangle-screened multivariate normal distributions and its applications

A screening problem is tackled by proposing a parametric class of distributions designed to match the behavior of the partially observed screened data. This class is obtained from the nontruncated marginal of the rectangle-truncated multivariate normal distributions. Motivations for the screened distribution as well as some of the basic properties, such as its characteristic function, are presented. These allow us a detailed exploration of other important properties that include closure property in linear transformation, in marginal and conditional operations, and in a mixture operation as well as the first two moments and some sampling distributions. Various applications of these results to the statistical modelling and data analysis are also provided.     

Simultaneous Confidence Tubes in Multivariate Linear Regression

Simultaneous confidence bands have been shown in the statistical literature as powerful inferential tools in univariate linear regression. While the methodology of simultaneous confidence bands for univariate linear regression has been extensively researched and well developed, no published work seems available for multivariate linear regression. This paper fills this gap by studying one particular simultaneous confidence band for multivariate linear regression. Because of the shape of the band, the word ‘tube’ is more pertinent and so will be used to replace the word ‘band’. It is shown that the construction of the tube is related to the distribution of the largest eigenvalue. A simulation‐based method is proposed to compute the 1 ? α quantile of this eigenvalue. With the computation power of modern computers, the simultaneous confidence tube can be computed fast and accurately. A real‐data example is used to illustrate the method, and many potential research problems have been pointed out.     

Nonparametric test for the homogeneity of the overall variability

In this paper, we propose a nonparametric test for homogeneity of overall variabilities for two multi-dimensional populations. Comparisons between the proposed nonparametric procedure and the asymptotic parametric procedure and a permutation test based on standardized generalized variances are made when the underlying populations are multivariate normal. We also study the performance of these test procedures when the underlying populations are non-normal. We observe that the nonparametric procedure and the permutation test based on standardized generalized variances are not as powerful as the asymptotic parametric test under normality. However, they are reliable and powerful tests for comparing overall variability under other multivariate distributions such as the multivariate Cauchy, the multivariate Pareto and the multivariate exponential distributions, even with small sample sizes. A Monte Carlo simulation study is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed procedures. An example from an educational study is used to illustrate the proposed nonparametric test.     

Interval estimation for the Pareto distribution based on the progressive Type II censored sample

For the complete sample and the right Type II censored sample, Chen [Joint confidence region for the parameters of Pareto distribution. Metrika 44 (1996), pp. 191–197] proposed the interval estimation of the parameter θ and the joint confidence region of the two parameters of Pareto distribution. This paper proposed two methods to construct the confidence region of the two parameters of the Pareto distribution for the progressive Type II censored sample. A simulation study comparing the performance of the two methods is done and concludes that Method 1 is superior to Method 2 by obtaining a smaller confidence area. The interval estimation of parameter ν is also given under progressive Type II censoring. In addition, the predictive intervals of the future observation and the ratio of the two future consecutive failure times based on the progressive Type II censored sample are also proposed. Finally, one example is given to illustrate all interval estimations in this paper.     

A Multivariate Model for Repeated Failure Time Measurements

A parametric multivariate failure time distribution is derived from a frailty-type model with a particular frailty distribution. It covers as special cases certain distributions which have been used for multivariate survival data in recent years. Some properties of the distribution are derived: its marginal and conditional distributions lie within the parametric family, and association between the component variates can be positive or, to a limited extent, negative. The simple closed form of the survivor function is useful for right-censored data, as occur commonly in survival analysis, and for calculating uniform residuals. Also featured is the distribution of ratios of paired failure times. The model is applied to data from the literature     

Multivariate semi-α-Laplace distributions

A multivariate semi-α-Laplace distribution (denoted by Ms-αLaplace) is introduced and studied in this paper. It is more general than the multivariate Linnik and Laplace distributions proposed by Sabu and Pillai (1991) or Anderson (1992). The Ms-αLaplace distribution has univariate semi-α-Laplace (Pillai, 1985) as marginal distribution. Various characterization theorems of the Ms-αLaplace distribution based on the closure property of the normalized geometric sum are proved.     

A Note on the Complementary Mixture Pareto II Distribution

We introduce a new survival distribution, of Pareto type, that arises from a cure-mixture frailty model. We describe its properties and demonstrate connections with familiar distributions including the Pareto and exponential. We derive its characteristic function and moments.