Improving on the Best Affine Equivariant Estimator of the Ratio of Generalized Variances

We consider the problem of decision-theoretic estimation of the ratio of generalized variances of two matrix normal distributions with unknown means under a general loss function. The inadmissibility of the best affine equivariant estimator is established by exhibiting various improved estimators. In particular, under certain conditions on the loss, two classes of improved procedures based onallthe available data are presented. As a preliminary result of independent interest, an improved estimator of an arbitrary power of the generalized variance of a matrix normal distribution with an unknown mean is derived under a general strictly bowl-shaped loss.     

Decision Theoretic Estimation of the Ratio of Variances in a Bivariate Normal Distribution

In this paper the problem of estimating the ratio of variances, , in a bivariate normal distribution with unknown mean is considered from a decision-theoretic point of view. First, the UMVU estimator of is derived, and then it is shown to be inadmissible under two specific loss functions, namely, the squared error loss and the entropy loss. The derivation of the results is done by conditioning on an auxiliary negative binomial random variable.     

Generalized variance estimators in the multivariate gamma models

It is already known that the uniformly minimum variance unbiased (UMVU) estimator of the generalized variance always exists for any natural exponential family. However, in practice, this estimator is often difficult to obtain. This paper provides explicit forms of the UMVU estimators for the bivariate and symmetric multivariate gamma models, which are diagonal quadratic exponential families. For the non-independent multivariate gamma models, it is shown that the UMVU and the maximum likelihood estimators are not proportional.      

Stein's phenomenon in estimation of means restricted to a polyhedral convex cone

This paper treats the problem of estimating the restricted means of normal distributions with a known variance, where the means are restricted to a polyhedral convex cone which includes various restrictions such as positive orthant, simple order, tree order and umbrella order restrictions. In the context of the simultaneous estimation of the restricted means, it is of great interest to investigate decision-theoretic properties of the generalized Bayes estimator against the uniform prior distribution over the polyhedral convex cone. In this paper, the generalized Bayes estimator is shown to be minimax. It is also proved that it is admissible in the one- or two-dimensional case, but is improved on by a shrinkage estimator in the three- or more-dimensional case. This means that the so-called Stein phenomenon on the minimax generalized Bayes estimator can be extended to the case where the means are restricted to the polyhedral convex cone. The risk behaviors of the estimators are investigated through Monte Carlo simulation, and it is revealed that the shrinkage estimator has a substantial risk reduction.     

Nonparametric estimation of the dependence function for a multivariate extreme value distribution

Understanding and modeling dependence structures for multivariate extreme values are of interest in a number of application areas. One of the well-known approaches is to investigate the Pickands dependence function. In the bivariate setting, there exist several estimators for estimating the Pickands dependence function which assume known marginal distributions [J. Pickands, Multivariate extreme value distributions, Bull. Internat. Statist. Inst., 49 (1981) 859-878; P. Deheuvels, On the limiting behavior of the Pickands estimator for bivariate extreme-value distributions, Statist. Probab. Lett. 12 (1991) 429-439; P. Hall, N. Tajvidi, Distribution and dependence-function estimation for bivariate extreme-value distributions, Bernoulli 6 (2000) 835-844; P. Capéraà, A.-L. Fougères, C. Genest, A nonparametric estimation procedure for bivariate extreme value copulas, Biometrika 84 (1997) 567-577]. In this paper, we generalize the bivariate results to p-variate multivariate extreme value distributions with p?2. We demonstrate that the proposed estimators are consistent and asymptotically normal as well as have excellent small sample behavior.     

Numerical approximation of conditional asymptotic variances using Monte Carlo simulation

We consider in this paper the use of Monte Carlo simulation to numerically approximate the asymptotic variance of an estimator of a population parameter. When the variance of an estimator does not exist in finite samples, the variance of its limiting distribution is often used for inferences. However, in this case, the numerical approximation of asymptotic variances is less straightforward, unless their analytical derivation is mathematically tractable. The method proposed does not assume the existence of variance in finite samples. If finite sample variance does exist, it provides a more efficient approximation than the one based on the convergence of finite sample variances. Furthermore, the results obtained will be potentially useful in evaluating and comparing different estimation procedures based on their asymptotic variances for various types of distributions. The method is also applicable in surveys where the sample size required to achieve a fixed margin of error is based on the asymptotic variance of the estimator. The proposed method can be routinely applied and alleviates the complex theoretical treatment usually associated with the analytical derivation of the asymptotic variance of an estimator which is often managed on a case by case basis. This is particularly appealing in view of the advance of modern computing technology. The proposed numerical approximation is based on the variances of a certain truncated statistic for two selected sample sizes, using a Richardson extrapolation type formulation. The variances of the truncated statistic for the two sample sizes are computed based on Monte Carlo simulations, and the theory for optimizing the computing resources is also given. The accuracy of the proposed method is numerically demonstrated in a classical errors-in-variables model where analytical results are available for the purpose of comparisons.     

An estimator for the quadratic covariation of asynchronously observed Itô processes with noise: Asymptotic distribution theory

The article is devoted to the nonparametric estimation of the quadratic covariation of non-synchronously observed Itô processes in an additive microstructure noise model. In a high-frequency setting, we aim at establishing an asymptotic distribution theory for a generalized multiscale estimator including a feasible central limit theorem with optimal convergence rate on convenient regularity assumptions. The inevitably remaining impact of asynchronous deterministic sampling schemes and noise corruption on the asymptotic distribution is precisely elucidated. A case study for various important examples, several generalizations of the model and an algorithm for the implementation warrant the utility of the estimation method in applications.     

Statistical inference for panel data semiparametric partially linear regression models with heteroscedastic errors

We consider a panel data semiparametric partially linear regression model with an unknown parameter vector for the linear parametric component, an unknown nonparametric function for the nonlinear component, and a one-way error component structure which allows unequal error variances (referred to as heteroscedasticity). We develop procedures to detect heteroscedasticity and one-way error component structure, and propose a weighted semiparametric least squares estimator (WSLSE) of the parametric component in the presence of heteroscedasticity and/or one-way error component structure. This WSLSE is asymptotically more efficient than the usual semiparametric least squares estimator considered in the literature. The asymptotic properties of the WSLSE are derived. The nonparametric component of the model is estimated by the local polynomial method. Some simulations are conducted to demonstrate the finite sample performances of the proposed testing and estimation procedures. An example of application on a set of panel data of medical expenditures in Australia is also illustrated.     

Estimation of the entropy of a multivariate normal distribution

Motivated by problems in molecular biosciences wherein the evaluation of entropy of a molecular system is important for understanding its thermodynamic properties, we consider the efficient estimation of entropy of a multivariate normal distribution having unknown mean vector and covariance matrix. Based on a random sample, we discuss the problem of estimating the entropy under the quadratic loss function. The best affine equivariant estimator is obtained and, interestingly, it also turns out to be an unbiased estimator and a generalized Bayes estimator. It is established that the best affine equivariant estimator is admissible in the class of estimators that depend on the determinant of the sample covariance matrix alone. The risk improvements of the best affine equivariant estimator over the maximum likelihood estimator (an estimator commonly used in molecular sciences) are obtained numerically and are found to be substantial in higher dimensions, which is commonly the case for atomic coordinates in macromolecules such as proteins. We further establish that even the best affine equivariant estimator is inadmissible and obtain Stein-type and Brewster–Zidek-type estimators dominating it. The Brewster–Zidek-type estimator is shown to be generalized Bayes.     

Estimation, prediction and the Stein phenomenon under divergence loss

We consider two problems: (1) estimate a normal mean under a general divergence loss introduced in [S. Amari, Differential geometry of curved exponential families — curvatures and information loss, Ann. Statist. 10 (1982) 357-387] and [N. Cressie, T.R.C. Read, Multinomial goodness-of-fit tests, J. Roy. Statist. Soc. Ser. B. 46 (1984) 440-464] and (2) find a predictive density of a new observation drawn independently of observations sampled from a normal distribution with the same mean but possibly with a different variance under the same loss. The general divergence loss includes as special cases both the Kullback-Leibler and Bhattacharyya-Hellinger losses. The sample mean, which is a Bayes estimator of the population mean under this loss and the improper uniform prior, is shown to be minimax in any arbitrary dimension. A counterpart of this result for predictive density is also proved in any arbitrary dimension. The admissibility of these rules holds in one dimension, and we conjecture that the result is true in two dimensions as well. However, the general Baranchick [A.J. Baranchick, a family of minimax estimators of the mean of a multivariate normal distribution, Ann. Math. Statist. 41 (1970) 642-645] class of estimators, which includes the James-Stein estimator and the Strawderman [W.E. Strawderman, Proper Bayes minimax estimators of the multivariate normal mean, Ann. Math. Statist. 42 (1971) 385-388] class of estimators, dominates the sample mean in three or higher dimensions for the estimation problem. An analogous class of predictive densities is defined and any member of this class is shown to dominate the predictive density corresponding to a uniform prior in three or higher dimensions. For the prediction problem, in the special case of Kullback-Leibler loss, our results complement to a certain extent some of the recent important work of Komaki [F. Komaki, A shrinkage predictive distribution for multivariate normal observations, Biometrika 88 (2001) 859-864] and George, Liang and Xu [E.I. George, F. Liang, X. Xu, Improved minimax predictive densities under Kullbak-Leibler loss, Ann. Statist. 34 (2006) 78-92]. While our proposed approach produces a general class of predictive densities (not necessarily Bayes, but not excluding Bayes predictors) dominating the predictive density under a uniform prior. We show also that various modifications of the James-Stein estimator continue to dominate the sample mean, and by the duality of estimation and predictive density results which we will show, similar results continue to hold for the prediction problem as well.     

Empirical likelihood for LAD estimators in infinite variance ARMA models

In this paper, we use an empirical likelihood method to construct confidence regions for the stationary ARMA(p,q) models with infinite variance. An empirical log-likelihood ratio is derived by the estimating equation of the self-weighted LAD estimator. It is proved that the proposed statistic has an asymptotic standard chi-squared distribution. Simulation studies show that in a small sample case, the performance of empirical likelihood method is better than that of normal approximation of the LAD estimator in terms of the coverage accuracy.     

The Sample Covariance Is Not Efficient for Elliptical Distributions

It is well known that the sample covariance is not an efficient estimator of the covariance of a bivariate normal vector. We extend this result to elliptical distributions and we propose a simple explicit estimator, which is efficient in the normal case and which outperforms the sample covariance in general. Necessary and sufficient conditions are established under which this estimator is in general efficient for an elliptical distribution.     

Bias-reduced estimators for bivariate tail modelling

Ledford and Tawn (1997) introduced a flexible bivariate tail model based on the coefficient of tail dependence and on the dependence of the extreme values of the random variables. In this paper, we extend the concept by specifying the slowly varying part of the model as done by Hall (1982) with the univariate case. Based on Beirlant et al. (2009), we propose a bias-reduced estimator for the coefficient of tail dependence and for the estimation of small tail probabilities. We discuss the properties of these estimators via simulations and a real-life example. Furthermore, we discuss some theoretical asymptotic aspects of this approach.     

Quasi-maximum likelihood estimation in GARCH processes when some coefficients are equal to zero

The asymptotic distribution of the quasi-maximum likelihood (QML) estimator is established for generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic (GARCH) processes, when the true parameter may have zero coefficients. This asymptotic distribution is the projection of a normal vector distribution onto a convex cone. The results are derived under mild conditions. For an important subclass of models, no moment condition is imposed on the GARCH process. The main practical implication of these results concerns the estimation of overidentified GARCH models.     

Estimating the covariance matrix: a new approach

In this paper, we consider the problem of estimating the covariance matrix and the generalized variance when the observations follow a nonsingular multivariate normal distribution with unknown mean. A new method is presented to obtain a truncated estimator that utilizes the information available in the sample mean matrix and dominates the James-Stein minimax estimator. Several scale equivariant minimax estimators are also given. This method is then applied to obtain new truncated and improved estimators of the generalized variance; it also provides a new proof to the results of Shorrock and Zidek (Ann. Statist. 4 (1976) 629) and Sinha (J. Multivariate Anal. 6 (1976) 617).     

A note on Sheppard's corrections for grouping and maximum likelihood estimation

Sheppard's corrections for grouping can, in the case of an underlying normal distribution, be interpreted as a first step to the solution of the maximum likelihood equations which incorporate the grouping problem. This result of Lindley (for the univariate) and Haitovsky (for the bivariate) is generalized to the multivariate normal distribution, making use of recent results in matrix algebra. Also, formulae concerning the efficiency lost in grouping are generalized to the multivariate case.     

Completeness and unbiased estimation of mean vector in the multivariate group sequential case

We consider estimation after a group sequential test about a multivariate normal mean, such as a χ² test or a sequential version of the Bonferroni procedure. We derive the density function of the sufficient statistics and show that the sample mean remains to be the maximum likelihood estimator but is no longer unbiased. We propose an alternative Rao-Blackwell type unbiased estimator. We show that the family of distributions of the sufficient statistic is not complete, and there exist infinitely many unbiased estimators of the mean vector and none has uniformly minimum variance. However, when restricted to truncation-adaptable statistics, completeness holds and the Rao-Blackwell estimator has uniformly minimum variance.     

Asymptotic properties of conditional maximum likelihood estimator in a certain exponential model

The conditional maximum likelihood estimator is suggested as an alternative to the maximum likelihood estimator and is favorable for an estimator of a dispersion parameter in the normal distribution, the inverse-Gaussian distribution, and so on. However, it is not clear whether the conditional maximum likelihood estimator is asymptotically efficient in general. Consider the case where it is asymptotically efficient and its asymptotic covariance depends only on an objective parameter in an exponential model. This remand implies that the exponential model possesses a certain parallel foliation. In this situation, this paper investigates asymptotic properties of the conditional maximum likelihood estimator and compares the conditional maximum likelihood estimator with the maximum likelihood estimator. We see that the bias of the former is more robust than that of the latter and that two estimators are very close, especially in the sense of bias-corrected version. The mean Pythagorean relation is also discussed.     

Parametric tail copula estimation and model testing

Parametric models for tail copulas are being used for modeling tail dependence and maximum likelihood estimation is employed to estimate unknown parameters. However, two important questions seem unanswered in the literature: (1) What is the asymptotic distribution of the MLE and (2) how does one test the parametric model? In this paper, we answer these two questions in the case of a single parameter for ease of illustration. A simulation study is provided to investigate the finite sample performance of the proposed estimator and test.