We define a generalized index of jump activity, propose estimators of that index for a discretely sampled process and derive the estimators' properties. These estimators are applicable despite the presence of Brownian volatility in the process, which makes it more challenging to infer the characteristics of the small, infinite activity jumps. When the method is applied to high frequency stock returns, we find evidence of infinitely active jumps in the data and estimate their index of activity.
The jump behavior of an infinitely active Itô semimartingale can be conveniently characterized by a jump activity index of Blumenthal-Getoor type, typically assumed to be constant in time. We study Markovian semimartingales with a non-constant, state-dependent jump activity index and a non-vanishing continuous diffusion component. A nonparametric estimator for the functional jump activity index is proposed and shown to be asymptotically normal under combined high-frequency and long-time-span asymptotics. Furthermore, we propose a nonparametric drift estimator which is robust to symmetric jumps…
We consider estimation of the quadratic (co)variation of a semimartingale from discrete observations which are irregularly spaced under high-frequency asymptotics. In the univariate setting, results by Jacod (2008) are generalized to the case of irregular observations. In the two-dimensional setup under non-synchronous observations, we derive a stable central limit theorem for the Hayashi-Yoshida estimator in the presence of jumps. We reveal how idiosyncratic and simultaneous jumps affect the asymptotic distribution. Observation times generated by Poisson processes are explicitly discussed.
We propose statistical tests to discriminate between the finite and infinite activity of jumps in a semimartingale discretely observed at high frequency. The two statistics allow for a symmetric treatment of the problem: we can either take the null hypothesis to be finite activity, or infinite activity. When implemented on high-frequency stock returns, both tests point toward the presence of infinite-activity jumps in the data.
We propose a nonparametric estimator of the jump activity index $β$ of a pure-jump semimartingale $X$ driven by a $β$-stable process when the underlying observations are coming from a high-frequency setting at irregular times. The proposed estimator is based on an empirical characteristic function using rescaled increments of $X$, with a limit which depends in a complicated way on $β$ and the distribution of the sampling scheme. Utilising an asymptotic expansion we derive a consistent estimator for $β$ and prove an associated central limit theorem.
Asymptotic theory for approximate martingale estimating functions is generalised to diffusions with finite-activity jumps, when the sampling frequency and terminal sampling time go to infinity. Rate optimality and efficiency are of particular concern. Under mild assumptions, it is shown that estimators of drift, diffusion, and jump parameters are consistent and asymptotically normal, as well as rate-optimal for the drift and jump parameters. Additional conditions are derived, which ensure rate-optimality for the diffusion parameter as well as efficiency for all parameters. The findings indicat…
In this paper we consider two processes driven by diffusions and jumps. The jump components are Levy processes and they can both have finite activity and infinite activity. Given discrete observations we estimate the covariation between the two diffusion parts and the co-jumps. The detection of the co-jumps allows to gain insight in the dependence structure of the jump components and has important applications in finance. Our estimators are based on a threshold principle allowing to isolate the jumps. This work follows Gobbi and Mancini (2006) where the asymptotic normality for the estimator o…
We study the problem of the efficient estimation of the jumps for stochastic processes. We assume that the stochastic jump process $(X_t)_{t\in[0,1]}$ is observed discretely, with a sampling step of size $1/n$. In the spirit of Hajek's convolution theorem, we show some lower bounds for the estimation error of the sequence of the jumps $(ΔX_{T_k})_k$. As an intermediate result, we prove a LAMN property, with rate $\sqrt{n}$, when the marks of the underlying jump component are deterministic. We deduce then a convolution theorem, with an explicit asymptotic minimal variance, in the case where the…
In this paper, local linear estimators are adapted for the unknown infinitesimal coefficients associated with continuous-time asset return model with jumps, which can correct the bias automatically due to their simple bias representation. The integrated diffusion models with jumps, especially infinite activity jumps are mainly investigated. In addition, under mild conditions, the weak consistency and asymptotic normality is provided through the conditional Lindeberg theorem. Furthermore, our method presents advantages in bias correction through simulation whether jumps belong to the finite act…
The estimation of absorption time distributions of Markov jump processes is an important task in various branches of statistics and applied probability. While the time-homogeneous case is classic, the time-inhomogeneous case has recently received increased attention due to its added flexibility and advances in computational power. However, commuting sub-intensity matrices are assumed, which in various cases limits the parsimonious properties of the resulting representation. This paper develops the theory required to solve the general case through maximum likelihood estimation, and in particula…
In quantitative finance, we often model asset prices as semimartingales, with drift, diffusion and jump components. The jump activity index measures the strength of the jumps at high frequencies, and is of interest both in model selection and fitting, and in volatility estimation. In this paper, we give a novel estimate of the jump activity, together with corresponding confidence intervals. Our estimate improves upon previous work, achieving near-optimal rates of convergence, and good finite-sample performance in Monte-Carlo experiments.
We derive a nonparametric estimator of the jump-activity index $β$ of a "locally-stable" pure-jump Itô semimartingale from discrete observations of the process on a fixed time interval with mesh of the observation grid shrinking to zero. The estimator is based on the empirical characteristic function of the increments of the process scaled by local power variations formed from blocks of increments spanning shrinking time intervals preceding the increments to be scaled. The scaling serves two purposes: (1) it controls for the time variation in the jump compensator around zero, and (2) it ensure…
Based on empirical evidence of fast mean-reverting spikes, we model electricity price processes $X+Z^β$ as the sum of a continuous Itô semimartingale $X$ and a a mean-reverting compound Poisson process $Z_t^β= \int_0^t \int_{\mathbb{R}} xe^{-β(t-s)}\underline{p}(ds,dt)$ where $\underline{p}(ds,dt)$ is Poisson random measure with intensity $λds\otimes dt$. In a first part, we investigate the estimation of $(λ,β)$ from discrete observations and establish asymptotic efficiency in various asymptotic settings. In a second part, we discuss the use of our inference results for correcting the value of…
We consider a stochastic process driven by a diffusion and jumps. We devise a technique, which is based on a discrete record of observations, for identifying the times when jumps larger than a suitably defined threshold occurred. The technique allows also jump size estimation. We prove the consistency of a nonparametric estimator of the integrated infinitesimal variance of the process continuous part when the jump component with infinite activity is Levy. Central limit results are proved in the case where the jump component has finite activity. Some simulations illustrate the reliability of th…
Volatility estimation based on high-frequency data is key to accurately measure and control the risk of financial assets. A Lévy process with infinite jump activity and microstructure noise is considered one of the simplest, yet accurate enough, models for financial data at high-frequency. Utilizing this model, we propose a "purposely misspecified" posterior of the volatility obtained by ignoring the jump-component of the process. The misspecified posterior is further corrected by a simple estimate of the location shift and re-scaling of the log likelihood. Our main result establishes a Bernst…
This paper presents a nonparametric method for estimating the conditional density associated to the jump rate of a piecewise-deterministic Markov process. In our framework, the estimation needs only one observation of the process within a long time interval. Our method relies on a generalization of Aalen's multiplicative intensity model. We prove the uniform consistency of our estimator, under some reasonable assumptions related to the primitive characteristics of the process. A simulation example illustrates the behavior of our estimator.
We define a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) in which each hidden state has time-dependent $\textit{activity levels}$ that drive transitions and emissions, and show how to estimate its parameters. Our construction is motivated by the problem of inferring human mobility on sub-daily time scales from, for example, mobile phone records.
We aim at estimating the invariant density associated to a stochastic differential equation with jumps in low dimension, which is for $d=1$ and $d=2$. We consider a class of jump diffusion processes whose invariant density belongs to some Hölder space. Firstly, in dimension one, we show that the kernel density estimator achieves the convergence rate $\frac{1}{T}$, which is the optimal rate in the absence of jumps. This improves the convergence rate obtained in [Amorino, Gloter (2021)], which depends on the Blumenthal-Getoor index for $d=1$ and is equal to $\frac{\log T}{T}$ for $d=2$. Secondly…
We propose a new test to determine whether jumps are present in asset returns or other discretely sampled processes. As the sampling interval tends to 0, our test statistic converges to 1 if there are jumps, and to another deterministic and known value (such as 2) if there are no jumps. The test is valid for all Itô semimartingales, depends neither on the law of the process nor on the coefficients of the equation which it solves, does not require a preliminary estimation of these coefficients, and when there are jumps the test is applicable whether jumps have finite or infinite-activity and fo…
Subordinate diffusions are constructed by time changing diffusion processes with an independent Lévy subordinator. This is a rich family of Markovian jump processes which exhibit a variety of jump behavior and have found many applications. This paper studies parametric inference of discretely observed ergodic subordinate diffusions. We solve the identifiability problem for these processes using spectral theory and propose a two-step estimation procedure based on estimating functions. In the first step, we use an estimating function that only involves diffusion parameters. In the second step, a…
We propose a new estimator for the integrated covariance of two Ito semimartingales observed at a high-frequency. This new estimator, which we call the pre-averaged truncated Hayashi-Yoshida estimator, enables us to separate the sum of the co-jumps from the total quadratic covariation even in the case that the sampling schemes of two processes are nonsynchronous and the observation data is polluted by some noise. It is the first estimator which can simultaneously handle these three issues, which are fundamental to empirical studies of high-frequency financial data. We also show the asymptotic …
The problem of integrated volatility estimation for the solution X of a stochastic differential equation with L{é}vy-type jumps is considered under discrete high-frequency observations in both short and long time horizon. We provide an asymptotic expansion for the integrated volatility that gives us, in detail, the contribution deriving from the jump part. The knowledge of such a contribution allows us to build an unbiased version of the truncated quadratic variation, in which the bias is visibly reduced. In earlier results the condition $β$ > 1 2(2--$α$) on $β$ (that is such that (1/n) $β$ is…
In this paper we consider an ergodic diffusion process with jumps whose drift coefficient depends on an unknown parameter $θ$. We suppose that the process is discretely observed at the instants (t n i)i=0,...,n with $Δ$n = sup i=0,...,n--1 (t n i+1 -- t n i) $\rightarrow$ 0. We introduce an estimator of $θ$, based on a contrast function, which is efficient without requiring any conditions on the rate at which $Δ$n $\rightarrow$ 0, and where we allow the observed process to have non summable jumps. This extends earlier results where the condition n$Δ$ 3 n $\rightarrow$ 0 was needed (see [10],[2…
Observing prices of European put and call options, we calibrate exponential Lévy models nonparametrically. We discuss the efficient implementation of the spectral estimation procedures for Lévy models of finite jump activity as well as for self-decomposable Lévy models. Based on finite sample variances, confidence intervals are constructed for the volatility, for the drift and, pointwise, for the jump density. As demonstrated by simulations, these intervals perform well in terms of size and coverage probabilities. We compare the performance of the procedures for finite and infinite jump activi…
We propose new nonparametric estimators of the integrated volatility of an Itô semimartingale observed at discrete times on a fixed time interval with mesh of the observation grid shrinking to zero. The proposed estimators achieve the optimal rate and variance of estimating integrated volatility even in the presence of infinite variation jumps when the latter are stochastic integrals with respect to locally "stable" Lévy processes, that is, processes whose Lévy measure around zero behaves like that of a stable process. On a first step, we estimate locally volatility from the empirical characte…
We address the questions of identifying pairs of interacting neurons from the observation of their spiking activity. The neuronal network is modeled by a system of interacting point processes with memory of variable length. The influence of a neuron on another can be either excitatory or inhibitory. To identify the existence and the nature of an interaction we propose an algorithm based only on the observation of joint activity of the two neurons in successive time slots. This reduces the amount of computation and storage required to run the algorithm, thereby making the algorithm suitable for…
We study the nonparametric calibration of exponential Lévy models with infinite jump activity. In particular our analysis applies to self-decomposable processes whose jump density can be characterized by the $k$-function, which is typically nonsmooth at zero. On the one hand the estimation of the drift, of the activity measure $α:=k(0+)+k(0-)$ and of analogous parameters for the derivatives of the $k$-function are considered and on the other hand we estimate nonparametrically the $k$-function. Minimax convergence rates are derived. Since the rates depend on $α$, we construct estimators adaptin…
In this paper we address the question of statistical model selection for a class of stochastic models of biological neural nets. Models in this class are systems of interacting chains with memory of variable length. Each chain describes the activity of a single neuron, indicating whether it spikes or not at a given time. The spiking probability of a given neuron depends on the time evolution of its presynaptic neurons since its last spike time. When a neuron spikes, its potential is reset to a resting level and postsynaptic current pulses are generated, modifying the membrane potential of all …
