Extreme value properties of multivariate t copulas

The extremal dependence behavior of t copulas is examined and their extreme value limiting copulas, called the t-EV copulas, are derived explicitly using tail dependence functions. As two special cases, the Hüsler–Reiss and the Marshall–Olkin distributions emerge as limits of the t-EV copula as the degrees of freedom go to infinity and zero respectively. The t copula and its extremal variants attain a wide range in the set of bivariate tail dependence parameters. Supported by NSERC Discovery Grant.     

Lower tail dependence for Archimedean copulas: Characterizations and pitfalls

Tail dependence copulas provide a natural perspective from which one can study the dependence in the tail of a multivariate distribution. For Archimedean copulas with continuously differentiable generators, regular variation of the generator near the origin is known to be closely connected to convergence of the lower tail dependence copulas to the Clayton copula. In this paper, these characterizations are refined and extended to the case of generators which are not necessarily continuously differentiable. Moreover, a counterexample is constructed showing that even if the generator of a strict Archimedean copula is continuously differentiable and slowly varying at the origin, then the lower tail dependence copulas still do not need to converge to the independent copula.     

A generalized beta copula with applications in modeling multivariate long-tailed data

This work proposes a new copula class that we call the MGB2 copula. The new copula originates from extracting the dependence function of the multivariate GB2 distribution (MGB2) whose marginals follow the univariate generalized beta distribution of the second kind (GB2). The MGB2 copula can capture non-elliptical and asymmetric dependencies among marginal coordinates and provides a simple formulation for multi-dimensional applications. This new class features positive tail dependence in the upper tail and tail independence in the lower tail. Furthermore, it includes some well-known copula classes, such as the Gaussian copula, as special or limiting cases.To illustrate the usefulness of the MGB2 copula, we build a trivariate MGB2 copula model of bodily injury liability closed claims. Extended GB2 distributions are chosen to accommodate the right-skewness and the long-tailedness of the outcome variables. For the regression component, location parameters with continuous predictors are introduced using a nonlinear additive function. For comparison purposes, we also consider the Gumbel and t copulas, alternatives that capture the upper tail dependence. The paper introduces a conditional plot graphical tool for assessing the validation of the MGB2 copula. Quantitative and graphical assessment of the goodness of fit demonstrate the advantages of the MGB2 copula over the other copulas.     

Tail dependence of the Gaussian copula revisited

Tail dependence refers to clustering of extreme events. In the context of financial risk management, the clustering of high-severity risks has a devastating effect on the well-being of firms and is thus of pivotal importance in risk analysis.When it comes to quantifying the extent of tail dependence, it is generally agreed that measures of tail dependence must be independent of the marginal distributions of the risks but rather solely copula-dependent. Indeed, all classical measures of tail dependence are such, but they investigate the amount of tail dependence along the main diagonal of copulas, which has often little in common with the concentration of extremes in the copulas’ domain of definition.In this paper we urge that the classical measures of tail dependence may underestimate the level of tail dependence in copulas. For the Gaussian copula, however, we prove that the classical measures are maximal. The implication of the result is two-fold: On the one hand, it means that in the Gaussian case, the (weak) measures of tail dependence that have been reported and used are of utmost prudence, which must be a reassuring news for practitioners. On the other hand, it further encourages substitution of the Gaussian copula with other copulas that are more tail dependent.     

基于双参数Copula沪港股市的相关性分析

通过双参数Copula分析上证指数和恒生指数的尾部相关性,并与单参数Copula及混合Copula进行比较分析,参数估计使用半参数估计法,结果表明:与单参数Clayton Copula、Gumbel-Hougaard Copula以及由两者组成的混合Copula相比,双参数BB1 Copula对数据具有更好的拟合效果;且通过分析发现两股市的上尾相关性大于下尾相关性.     

Tail dependence functions and vine copulas

Tail dependence and conditional tail dependence functions describe, respectively, the tail probabilities and conditional tail probabilities of a copula at various relative scales. The properties as well as the interplay of these two functions are established based upon their homogeneous structures. The extremal dependence of a copula, as described by its extreme value copulas, is shown to be completely determined by its tail dependence functions. For a vine copula built from a set of bivariate copulas, its tail dependence function can be expressed recursively by the tail dependence and conditional tail dependence functions of lower-dimensional margins. The effect of tail dependence of bivariate linking copulas on that of a vine copula is also investigated.     

Tail negative dependence and its applications for aggregate loss modeling

Tail order of copulas can be used to describe the strength of dependence in the tails of a joint distribution. When the value of tail order is larger than the dimension, it may lead to tail negative dependence. First, we prove results on conditions that lead to tail negative dependence for Archimedean copulas. Using the conditions, we construct new parametric copula families that possess upper tail negative dependence. Among them, a copula based on a scale mixture with a generalized gamma random variable (GGS copula) is useful for modeling asymmetric tail negative dependence. We propose mixed copula regression based on the GGS copula for aggregate loss modeling of a medical expenditure panel survey dataset. For this dataset, we find that there exists upper tail negative dependence between loss frequency and loss severity, and the introduction of tail negative dependence structures significantly improves the aggregate loss modeling.     

Tail order and intermediate tail dependence of multivariate copulas

In order to study copula families that have tail patterns and tail asymmetry different from multivariate Gaussian and t copulas, we introduce the concepts of tail order and tail order functions. These provide an integrated way to study both tail dependence and intermediate tail dependence. Some fundamental properties of tail order and tail order functions are obtained. For the multivariate Archimedean copula, we relate the tail heaviness of a positive random variable to the tail behavior of the Archimedean copula constructed from the Laplace transform of the random variable, and extend the results of Charpentier and Segers [7] [A. Charpentier, J. Segers, Tails of multivariate Archimedean copulas, Journal of Multivariate Analysis 100 (7) (2009) 1521–1537] for upper tails of Archimedean copulas. In addition, a new one-parameter Archimedean copula family based on the Laplace transform of the inverse Gamma distribution is proposed; it possesses patterns of upper and lower tails not seen in commonly used copula families. Finally, tail orders are studied for copulas constructed from mixtures of max-infinitely divisible copulas.     

On a bivariate copula with both upper and lower full-range tail dependence

Copula functions can be useful in accounting for various dependence patterns appearing in joint tails of data. We propose a new two-parameter bivariate copula family that possesses the following features. First, both upper and lower tails are able to explain full-range tail dependence. That is, the dependence in each tail can range among quadrant tail independence, intermediate tail dependence, and usual tail dependence. Second, it can capture upper and lower tail dependence patterns that are either the same or different. We first prove the full-range tail dependence property, and then we obtain the corresponding extreme value copula. There are two applications based on the proposed copula. The first one is modeling pairwise dependence between financial markets. The second one is modeling dynamic tail dependence patterns that appear in upper and lower tails of a loss-and-expense data.     

Operator Tail Dependence of Copulas

A notion of tail dependence based on operator regular variation is introduced for copulas, and the standard tail dependence used in the copula literature is included as a special case. The non-standard tail dependence with marginal power scaling functions having possibly distinct tail indexes is investigated in detail. We show that the copulas with operator tail dependence, incorporated with regularly varying univariate margins, give rise to a rich class of the non-standard multivariate regularly varying distributions. We also show that under some mild conditions, the copula of a non-standard multivariate regularly varying distribution has the standard tail dependence of order 1. Some illustrative examples are given.     

Construction of asymmetric copulas and its application in two-dimensional reliability modelling

Copulas offer a useful tool in modelling the dependence among random variables. In the literature, most of the existing copulas are symmetric while data collected from the real world may exhibit asymmetric nature. This necessitates developing asymmetric copulas that can model such data. In the meantime, existing methods of modelling two-dimensional reliability data are not able to capture the tail dependence that exists between the pair of age and usage, which are the two dimensions designated to describe product life. This paper proposes a new method of constructing asymmetric copulas, discusses the properties of the new copulas, and applies the method to fit two-dimensional reliability data that are collected from the real world.     

基于Copula函数的股指尾部相关性研究——以道琼斯工业指数与恒生指数为例

鉴于两步参数估计法在应用中存在误差大、计算复杂等缺陷,采用基于经验分布的半参数估计与非参数估计法确定相应边缘分布与Copula参数,对突发事件下的道琼斯工业指数与恒生指数之间的尾部相关性进行量化.研究发现ClaytonCopula,Gumbel Copula能够较好地刻画股指收益率序列间的尾部相关关系;道指与恒生指数存在着正的尾部相关且这种相关是非对称性的;在各个置信水平上,下尾损失均较上尾收益高,且下尾相关系数的增长幅度远大于上尾相关系数的增长幅度;极端事件造成的道指收益的剧烈下跌引发了恒生指数收益更强烈的相关反应,其造成的影响远超过两个市场同时上涨时的作用.     

Measuring the subprime crisis contagion: Evidence of change point analysis of copula functions

In this paper, we first determine the existence of structural changes in the dependence between time series of equity index returns of two markets using the change point testing method. The method is based on Archimedean copula functions, which are able to comprehensively describe dependence characteristics of random variables. The degree of financial contagion between markets is subsequently estimated using the tail dependence coefficient of copula functions before and after the change point. We empirically test our method by investigating financial contagion during the subprime crisis between the US S&P 500 index and five Asian markets, namely China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Our results show that a statistically significant change point exists in the dependence between the US market and all Asian stock markets except Taiwan. The upper tail dependence is larger after the time of change, implying the existence of contagion during the banking crisis between the US and the Asian economies. The degree of financial contagion is also estimated and found to be consistent with market events and media reports during that period.     

Tail Dependence Comparison of Survival Marshall–Olkin Copulas

The multivariate tail dependence describes the amount of dependence in the upper-orthant tail or lower-orthant tail of a multivariate distribution and can be used in the study of dependence among extreme values. We derive an explicit expression of tail dependence of multivariate survival Marshall–Olkin copulas, and obtain a sufficient condition under which tail dependencies of two survival Marshall–Olkin copulas can be compared. Some examples are also presented to illustrate our results.      

Modeling defaults with nested Archimedean copulas

In 2001, Schönbucher and Schubert extended Li’s well-known Gaussian copula model for modeling dependent defaults to allow for tail dependence. Instead of the Gaussian copula, Schönbucher and Schubert suggested to use Archimedean copulas. These copulas are able to capture tail dependence and therefore allow a standard intensity-based default model to have a positive probability of joint defaults within a short time period. As can be observed in the current financial crisis, this is an indispensable feature of any realistic default model. Another feature, motivated by empirical observations but rarely taken into account in default models, is that modeled portfolio components affected by defaults show significantly different levels of dependence depending on whether they belong to the same industry sector or not. The present work presents an extension of the model suggested by Schönbucher and Schubert to account for this fact. For this, nested Archimedean copulas are applied. As an application, the pricing of collateralized debt obligations is treated. Since the resulting loss distribution is not analytical tractable, fast sampling algorithms for nested Archimedean copulas are developed. Such algorithms boil down to sampling certain distributions given by their Laplace-Stieltjes transforms. For a large range of nested Archimedean copulas, efficient sampling techniques can be derived. Moreover, a general transformation of an Archimedean generator allows to construct and sample the corresponding nested Archimedean copulas.     

An empirical central limit theorem with applications to copulas under weak dependence

We state a multidimensional Functional Central Limit Theorem for weakly dependent random vectors. We apply this result to copulas. We get the weak convergence of the empirical copula process and of its smoothed version. The finite dimensional convergence of smoothed copula densities is also proved. A new definition and the theoretical analysis of conditional copulas and their empirical counterparts are provided.      

Asymmetric extreme interdependence in emerging equity markets

We assess the extent of integration between stock markets during stressful periods using the concept of copulas. Our methodology consists of fitting copulas to simultaneous exceedances of high thresholds, and computing copula‐based measures of interdependence and contagion. Using 21 pairs of emerging stock markets daily returns, we investigate if dependence increases with crisis, and analyse the chances of both markets crashing together. Dependence at joint positive and negative extreme returns levels may differ. This type of asymmetry is captured by the upper and lower tail dependence coefficients. Propagation of crisis may be faster in one direction, and this feature is captured by asymmetric copulas. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Upper comonotonicity and convex upper bounds for sums of random variables

It is well-known that if a random vector with given marginal distributions is comonotonic, it has the largest sum with respect to convex order. However, replacing the (unknown) copula by the comonotonic copula will in most cases not reflect reality well. For instance, in an insurance context we may have partial information about the dependence structure of different risks in the lower tail. In this paper, we extend the aforementioned result, using the concept of upper comonotonicity, to the case where the dependence structure of a random vector in the lower tail is already known. Since upper comonotonic random vectors have comonotonic behavior in the upper tail, we are able to extend several well-known results of comonotonicity to upper comonotonicity. As an application, we construct different increasing convex upper bounds for sums of random variables and compare these bounds in terms of increasing convex order.     

Modelling dependence structure with Archimedean copulas and applications to the iTraxx CDS index

In this paper we model the dependence structure between credit default swap (CDS) and jump risk using Archimedean copulas. The paper models and estimates the different relationships that can exist in different ranges of behaviour. It studies the bivariate distributions of CDS index spreads and the kurtosis of equity return distribution. To take into account nonlinear relationships and different structures of dependency, we employ three Archimedean copula functions: Gumbel, Clayton, and Frank. We adopt nonparametric estimation of copula parameters and we find an extreme co-movement of CDS and stock market conditions. In addition, tail dependence indicates the extreme co-movements and the potential for a simultaneous large loss in stock markets and a significant default risk. Ignoring the tail dependence would lead to underestimation of the default risk premium.     

半参数阿基米德Copula的实证研究

半参数阿基米德Copula族的生成元可由现有阿基米德Copula生成元得到,由于有独特的构造方式,该Copula族具有灵活的相关结构,能"自适应"地描述数据中包含的相关结构.外汇市场的实证分析证实了该Copula族在描述相关结构时的灵活性,对选择何种Copula描述金融资产间的相关结构有一定的参考意义.