The almost equivalence of pairwise and mutual independence and the duality with exchangeability

For a large collection of random variables in an ideal setting, pairwise independence is shown to be almost equivalent to mutual independence. An asymptotic interpretation of this fact shows the equivalence of asymptotic pairwise independence and asymptotic mutual independence for a triangular array (or a sequence) of random variables. Similar equivalence is also presented for uncorrelatedness and orthogonality as well as for the constancy of joint moment functions and exchangeability. General unification of multiplicative properties for random variables are obtained. The duality between independence and exchangeability is established through the random variables and sample functions in a process. Implications in other areas are also discussed, which include a justification for the use of mutually independent random variables derived from sequential draws where the underlying population only satisfies a version of weak dependence. Macroscopic stability of some mass phenomena in economics is also characterized via almost mutual independence. It is also pointed out that the unit interval can be used to index random variables in the ideal setting, provided that it is endowed together with some sample space a suitable larger measure structure. Received: 16 April 1997 / Revised version: 18 May 1998     

The characterizations of a semicircle law by the certain freeness in a C*-probability space

In usual probability theory, various characterizations of the Gaussian law have been obtained. For instance, independence of the sample mean and the sample variance of independently identically distributed random variables characterizes the Gaussian law and the property of remaining independent under rotations characterizes the Gaussian random variables. In this paper, we consider the free analogue of such a kind of characterizations replacing independence by freeness. We show that freeness of the certain pair of the linear form and the quadratic form in freely identically distributed noncommutative random variables, which covers the case for the sample mean and the sample variance, characterizes the semicircle law. Moreover we give the alternative proof for Nica's result that the property of remaining free under rotations characterizes a semicircular system. Our proof is more direct and straightforward one. Received: 12 February 1997 / Revised version: 16 June 1998     

Invariance and independence in multivariate distribution theory

Several general results are presented whereby various properties of independence or conditional independence between certain random variables may be deduced from the symmetries enjoyed by their joint distributions. These are applied to the distributions of sample correlation and canonical correlation coefficients when the underlying data-distribution has suitable orthogonal invariance. A typical result is that, for a random sample of observations on three independent normal variables, r₁₂, r₁₃, and r_23.1 are mutually independent.     

Multivariate measures of concordance

In 1984 Scarsini introduced a set of axioms for measures of concordance of ordered pairs of continuous random variables. We exhibit an extension of these axioms to ordered n-tuples of continuous random variables, n ≥ 2. We derive simple properties of such measures, give examples, and discuss the relation of the extended axioms to multivariate measures of concordance previously discussed in the literature.     

Pair-Copula Bayesian Networks

Pair-copula Bayesian networks (PCBNs) are a novel class of multivariate statistical models, which combine the distributional flexibility of pair-copula constructions (PCCs) with the parsimony of conditional independence models associated with directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). We are first to provide generic algorithms for random sampling and likelihood inference in arbitrary PCBNs as well as for selecting orderings of the parents of the vertices in the underlying graphs. Model selection of the DAG is facilitated using a version of the well-known PC algorithm that is based on a novel test for conditional independence of random variables tailored to the PCC framework. A simulation study shows the PC algorithm’s high aptitude for structure estimation in non-Gaussian PCBNs. The proposed methods are finally applied to modeling financial return data. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

基于距离相关系数的分层聚类法

随着大数据时代的到来，各个领域涌现出海量数据且结构复杂.如变量的维数不同、尺度不同等.而现实中变量之间往往存在着不确定关系，经典的Pearson相关系数仅能反映两个同维变量间的线性相关关系，不足以完全刻画变量间的相关关系.2007年Szekely等提出的距离相关系数则能描述不同维数变量间的非线性关系.为了探索变量之间的内在信息，本文基于距离相关系数提出了最大距离相关系数法对变量聚类，且有超度量性和空间收缩性.为充分发挥距离相关系数的优势，对上述方法改进得到类整体距离相关系数法.该方法在刻画两类间相似性时，将每类中的所有变量合并成一个整体，再计算这两个不同维数的整体间的距离相关系数.最后，将类整体距离相关系数法应用到几个实际问题中，验证了算法的有效性.     

Extremal behavior of pMAX processes

The well-known M4 processes of Smith and Weissman are very flexible models for asymptotically dependent multivariate data. Extended M4 of Heffernan et al. allows to also account for asymptotic independence. In this paper we introduce a more general multivariate model comprising asymptotic dependence and independence, which has the extended M4 class as a particular case. We study properties of the proposed model. In particular, we compute the multivariate extremal index, tail dependence and extremal coefficients.     

Independence and 2-monotonicity: Nice to have,hard to keep

In imprecise probability theories, independence modeling and computational tractability are two important issues. The former is essential to work with multiple variables and multivariate spaces, while the latter is essential in practical applications. When using lower probabilities to model uncertainty about the value assumed by a variable, satisfying the property of 2-monotonicity decreases the computational burden of inference, hence answering the latter issue. In a first part, this paper investigates whether the joint uncertainty obtained by main existing notions of independence preserve the 2-monotonicity of marginal models. It is shown that it is usually not the case, except for the formal extension of random set independence to 2-monotone lower probabilities. The second part of the paper explores the properties and interests of this extension within the setting of lower probabilities.     

Nonparametric estimation of the spectral measure,and associated dependence measures,for multivariate extreme values using a limiting conditional representation

The traditional approach to multivariate extreme values has been through the multivariate extreme value distribution G, characterised by its spectral measure H and associated Pickands’ dependence function A. More generally, for all asymptotically dependent variables, H determines the probability of all multivariate extreme events. When the variables are asymptotically dependent and under the assumption of unit Fréchet margins, several methods exist for the estimation of G, H and A which use variables with radial component exceeding some high threshold. For each of these characteristics, we propose new asymptotically consistent nonparametric estimators which arise from Heffernan and Tawn’s approach to multivariate extremes that conditions on variables with marginal values exceeding some high marginal threshold. The proposed estimators improve on existing estimators in three ways. First, under asymptotic dependence, they give self-consistent estimators of G, H and A; existing estimators are not self-consistent. Second, these existing estimators focus on the bivariate case, whereas our estimators extend easily to describe dependence in the multivariate case. Finally, for asymptotically independent cases, our estimators can model the level of asymptotic independence; whereas existing estimators for the spectral measure treat the variables as either being independent, or asymptotically dependent. For asymptotically dependent bivariate random variables, the new estimators are found to compare favourably with existing estimators, particularly for weak dependence. The method is illustrated with an application to finance data.     

On rank correlation measures for non-continuous random variables

For continuous random variables, many dependence concepts and measures of association can be expressed in terms of the corresponding copula only and are thus independent of the marginal distributions. This interrelationship generally fails as soon as there are discontinuities in the marginal distribution functions. In this paper, we consider an alternative transformation of an arbitrary random variable to a uniformly distributed one. Using this technique, the class of all possible copulas in the general case is investigated. In particular, we show that one of its members—the standard extension copula introduced by Schweizer and Sklar—captures the dependence structures in an analogous way the unique copula does in the continuous case. Furthermore, we consider measures of concordance between arbitrary random variables and obtain generalizations of Kendall's tau and Spearman's rho that correspond to the sample version of these quantities for empirical distributions.     

On the Distribution of a Sum of Sarmanov Distributed Random Variables

Built from given marginals with a flexible dependency structure, Sarmanov’s family of multivariate distributions became of interest in various fields. In this paper, we present some formulas for the density of the sum of several random variables joined by Sarmanov’s distribution, with accent on the particular case of exponentially distributed marginals. Such results are useful in solving, e.g., financial and actuarial problems.     

On the exact distribution of linear combinations of order statistics from dependent random variables

We study the exact distribution of linear combinations of order statistics of arbitrary (absolutely continuous) dependent random variables. In particular, we examine the case where the random variables have a joint elliptically contoured distribution and the case where the random variables are exchangeable. We investigate also the particular L-statistics that simply yield a set of order statistics, and study their joint distribution. We present the application of our results to genetic selection problems, design of cellular phone receivers, and visual acuity. We give illustrative examples based on the multivariate normal and multivariate Student t distributions.     

Hitting times of Brownian motion and the Matsumoto–Yor property on trees

The Matsumoto–Yor property in the bivariate case was originally defined through properties of functionals of the geometric Brownian motion. A multivariate version of this property was described in the language of directed trees and outside of the framework of stochastic processes in Massam and Weso?owski [H. Massam, J. Weso?owski, The Matsumoto–Yor property on trees, Bernoulli 10 (2004) 685–700]. Here we propose its interpretation through properties of hitting times of Brownian motion, extending the interpretation given in the bivariate case in Matsumoto and Yor [H. Matsumoto, M. Yor, Interpretation via Brownian motion of some independence properties between GIG and gamma variables, Statist. Probab. Lett. 61 (2003) 253–259].     

Univariate and multivariate measures of risk aversion and risk premiums

This paper develops univariate and multivariate measures of risk aversion for correlated risks. We derive Rubinstein's measures of risk aversion from the risk premiums with correlated random initial wealth and risk. It is shown that these measures are not only consistent with those for uncorrelated or independent risks, but also have the corresponding local properties of the Arrow-Pratt measures of risk aversion. Thus Rubinstein's measures of risk aversion are the appropriate extension of the Arrow-Pratt measures of risk aversion in the univariate case. We also derive a risk aversion matrix from the risk premiums with correlated initial wealth and risk vectors. This matrix measure is the multivariate version of Rubinstein's measures and is also the generalization of Duncan's results for non-random initial wealth. The univariate and multivariate measures of risk aversion developed in this paper are applied to portfolio theory in Li and Ziemba [15].This research was partially supported by the National Research Council of Canada.     

On testing equality of pairwise rank correlations in a multivariate random vector

Spearman’s rank-correlation coefficient (also called Spearman’s rho) represents one of the best-known measures to quantify the degree of dependence between two random variables. As a copula-based dependence measure, it is invariant with respect to the distribution’s univariate marginal distribution functions. In this paper, we consider statistical tests for the hypothesis that all pairwise Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients in a multivariate random vector are equal. The tests are nonparametric and their asymptotic distributions are derived based on the asymptotic behavior of the empirical copula process. Only weak assumptions on the distribution function, such as continuity of the marginal distributions and continuous partial differentiability of the copula, are required for obtaining the results. A nonparametric bootstrap method is suggested for either estimating unknown parameters of the test statistics or for determining the associated critical values. We present a simulation study in order to investigate the power of the proposed tests. The results are compared to a classical parametric test for equal pairwise Pearson’s correlation coefficients in a multivariate random vector. The general setting also allows the derivation of a test for stochastic independence based on Spearman’s rho.     

A multivariate nonparametric test of independence

A new nonparametric approach to the problem of testing the joint independence of two or more random vectors in arbitrary dimension is developed based on a measure of association determined by interpoint distances. The population independence coefficient takes values between 0 and 1, and equals zero if and only if the vectors are independent. We show that the corresponding statistic has a finite limit distribution if and only if the two random vectors are independent; thus we have a consistent test for independence. The coefficient is an increasing function of the absolute value of product moment correlation in the bivariate normal case, and coincides with the absolute value of correlation in the Bernoulli case. A simple modification of the statistic is affine invariant. The independence coefficient and the proposed statistic both have a natural extension to testing the independence of several random vectors. Empirical performance of the test is illustrated via a comparative Monte Carlo study.     

Coefficients of determination for least absolute deviation analysis

The least-absolute deviation or l₁ analysis of a linear model is an important alternative to the classical least squares analysis from the point of view of efficiency for longer-tailed error distributions and robustness to the presence of outliers. In this paper two coefficients of determination are proposed for the least-absolute deviation analysis. It is shown that they have desirable properties as measures of multiple association. Both fixed and random predictor variable cases are considered. In the case of random predictor variables, the sample coefficients of determination are shown to be consistent estimators of appropriate population parameters.     

Compound nonlinear congruential pseudorandom numbers

The nonlinear congruential method for generating uniform pseudorandom numbers has several very promising properties. However, an implementation in multiprecision of these pseudorandom number generators is usually necessary. In the present paper a compound version of the nonlinear congruential method is introduced, which overcomes this disadvantage. It is shown that the generated sequences have very attractive statistical independence properties. The results that are established are essentially best possible and show that the generated pseudorandom numbers model true random numbers very closely. The method of proof relies heavily on a thorough analysis of exponential sums.