Linear Vector AutoRegressive (VAR) models where the innovations could be unconditionally heteroscedastic and serially dependent are considered. The volatility structure is deterministic and quite general, including breaks or trending variances as special cases. In this framework we propose Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Generalized Least Squares (GLS) and Adaptive Least Squares (ALS) procedures. The GLS estimator requires the knowledge of the time-varying variance structure while in the ALS approach the unknown variance is estimated by kernel smoothing with the outer product of the OLS residuals vectors. Different bandwidths for the different cells of the time-varying variance matrix are also allowed. We derive the asymptotic distribution of the proposed estimators for the VAR model coefficients and compare their properties. In particular we show that the ALS estimator is asymptotically equivalent to the infeasible GLS estimator. This asymptotic equivalence is obtained uniformly with respect to the bandwidth(s) in a given range and hence justifies data-driven bandwidth rules. Using these results we build Wald tests for the linear Granger causality in mean which are adapted to VAR processes driven by errors with a non stationary volatility. It is also shown that the commonly used standard Wald test for the linear Granger causality in mean is potentially unreliable in our framework. Monte Carlo experiments illustrate the use of the different estimation approaches for the analysis of VAR models with stable innovations.
This paper develops a method for estimating parameters of a vector autoregression (VAR) observed in white noise. The estimation method assumes the noise variance matrix is known and does not require any iterative process. This study provides consistent estimators and shows the asymptotic distribution of the parameters required for conducting tests of Granger causality. Methods in the existing statistical literature cannot be used for testing Granger causality, since under the null hypothesis the model becomes unidentifiable. Measurement error effects on parameter estimates were evaluated by us…
The volatility modeling for autoregressive univariate time series is considered. A benchmark approach is the stationary ARCH model of Engle (1982). Motivated by real data evidence, processes with non constant unconditional variance and ARCH effects have been recently introduced. We take into account such possible non stationarity and propose simple testing procedures for ARCH effects. Adaptive McLeod and Li's portmanteau and ARCH-LM tests for checking for second order dynamics are provided. The standard versions of these tests, commonly used by practitioners, suppose constant unconditional var…
We present a new framework for learning Granger causality networks for multivariate categorical time series, based on the mixture transition distribution (MTD) model. Traditionally, MTD is plagued by a nonconvex objective, non-identifiability, and presence of many local optima. To circumvent these problems, we recast inference in the MTD as a convex problem. The new formulation facilitates the application of MTD to high-dimensional multivariate time series. As a baseline, we also formulate a multi-output logistic autoregressive model (mLTD), which while a straightforward extension of autoregre…
We introduce and explore a new class of stationary time series models for variance matrices based on a constructive definition exploiting inverse Wishart distribution theory. The main class of models explored is a novel class of stationary, first-order autoregressive (AR) processes on the cone of positive semi-definite matrices. Aspects of the theory and structure of these new models for multivariate "volatility" processes are described in detail and exemplified. We then develop approaches to model fitting via Bayesian simulation-based computations, creating a custom filtering method that reli…
Granger causality has been used for the investigation of the inter-dependence structure of the underlying systems of multi-variate time series. In particular, the direct causal effects are commonly estimated by the conditional Granger causality index (CGCI). In the presence of many observed variables and relatively short time series, CGCI may fail because it is based on vector autoregressive models (VAR) involving a large number of coefficients to be estimated. In this work, the VAR is restricted by a scheme that modifies the recently developed method of backward-in-time selection (BTS) of the…
A class of multivariate periodic autoregressive models is proposed where coupling between time series is achieved through linear mean functions. Various response distributions with quadratic mean-variance relationships fit into the framework, including the negative binomial, gamma and Gaussian distributions. We develop an iterative algorithm to obtain unconditional means, variances and auto-/cross-covariances for models with higher order lags. Analytical solutions are given for the univariate model with lag one and multivariate models with linear mean-variance relationship. A special case of t…
Causality graphs are routinely estimated in social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering due to their capacity to efficiently represent the spatiotemporal structure of multivariate data sets in a format amenable for human interpretation, forecasting, and anomaly detection. A popular approach to mathematically formalize causality is based on vector autoregressive (VAR) models and constitutes an alternative to the well-known, yet usually intractable, Granger causality. Relying on such a VAR causality notion, this paper develops two algorithms with complementary benefits to track time-varyi…
We show for the first time that, under the null hypothesis of vanishing Granger causality, the single-regression Granger-Geweke estimator converges to a generalised $χ^2$ distribution, which may be well approximated by a $Γ$ distribution. We show that this holds too for Geweke's spectral causality averaged over a given frequency band, and derive explicit expressions for the generalised $χ^2$ and $Γ$-approximation parameters in both cases. We present an asymptotically valid Neyman-Pearson test based on the single-regression estimators, and discuss in detail how it may be usefully employed in re…
This paper develops tests of the null hypothesis of linearity in the context of autoregressive models with Markov-switching means and variances. These tests are robust to the identification failures that plague conventional likelihood-based inference methods. The approach exploits the moments of normal mixtures implied by the regime-switching process and uses Monte Carlo test techniques to deal with the presence of an autoregressive component in the model specification. The proposed tests have very respectable power in comparison to the optimal tests for Markov-switching parameters of Carrasco…
Normal mean-variance mixture distributions are widely applied to simplify a model's implementation and improve their computational efficiency under the Maximum Likelihood (ML) approach. Especially for distributions with normal mean-variance mixtures representation such as the multivariate skewed variance gamma (MSVG) distribution, it utilises the expectation-conditional-maximisation (ECM) algorithm to iteratively obtain the ML estimates. To facilitate application to financial time series, the mean is further extended to include autoregressive terms. Techniques are proposed to deal with the unb…
Electroencephalograms (EEG) are noninvasive measurement signals of electrical neuronal activity in the brain. One of the current major statistical challenges is formally measuring functional dependency between those complex signals. This paper, proposes the spectral causality model (SCAU), a robust linear model, under a causality paradigm, to reflect inter- and intra-frequency modulation effects that cannot be identifiable using other methods. SCAU inference is conducted with three main steps: (a) signal decomposition into frequency bins, (b) intermediate spectral band mapping, and (c) depende…
We investigate the estimation of parameters in the random coefficient autoregressive model. We consider a nonstationary RCA process and show that the innovation variance parameter cannot be estimated by the quasi-maximum likelihood method. The asymptotic normality of the quasi-maximum likelihood estimator for the remaining model parameters is proven so the unit root problem does not exist in the random coefficient autoregressive model.
We show Vector Autoregressive Moving Average models with scalar Moving Average components could be estimated by generalized least square (GLS) for each fixed moving average polynomial. The conditional variance of the GLS model is the concentrated covariant matrix of the moving average process. Under GLS the likelihood function of these models has similar format to their VAR counterparts. Maximum likelihood estimate can be done by optimizing with gradient over the moving average parameters. These models are inexpensive generalizations of Vector Autoregressive models. We discuss a relationship b…
While most classical approaches to Granger causality detection repose upon linear time series assumptions, many interactions in neuroscience and economics applications are nonlinear. We develop an approach to nonlinear Granger causality detection using multilayer perceptrons where the input to the network is the past time lags of all series and the output is the future value of a single series. A sufficient condition for Granger non-causality in this setting is that all of the outgoing weights of the input data, the past lags of a series, to the first hidden layer are zero. For estimation, we …
In this paper we consider autoregressive models with conditional autoregressive variance, including the case of homoscedastic AR-models and the case of ARCH models. Our aim is to test the hypothesis of normality for the innovations in a completely nonparametric way, i. e. without imposing parametric assumptions on the conditional mean and volatility functions. To this end the Cramér-von Mises test based on the empirical distribution function of nonparametrically estimated residuals is shown to be asymptotically distribution-free. We demonstrate its good performance for finite sample sizes in a…
In modeling multivariate time series for either forecast or policy analysis, it would be beneficial to have figured out the cause-effect relations within the data. Regression analysis, however, is generally for correlation relation, and very few researches have focused on variance analysis for causality discovery. We first set up an equilibrium for the cause-effect relations using a fictitious vector autoregressive model. In the equilibrium, long-run relations are identified from noise, and spurious ones are negligibly close to zero. The solution, called causality distribution, measures the re…
A buffered double autoregressive (BDAR) time series model is proposed in this paper to depict the buffering phenomenon of conditional mean and conditional variance in time series. To build this model, a novel flexible regime switching mechanism is introduced to modify the classical threshold time series model by capturing the stickiness of signal. Besides, considering the inadequacy of traditional models under the lack of information, a signal retrospection is run in this model to provide a more accurate judgment. Moreover, formal proofs suggest strict stationarity and geometric ergodicity of …
Identifying directed interactions between species from time series of their population densities has many uses in ecology. This key statistical task is equivalent to causal time series inference, which connects to the Granger causality (GC) concept: $x$ causes $y$ if $x$ improves the prediction of $y$ in a dynamic model. However, the entangled nature of nonlinear ecological systems has led to question the appropriateness of Granger causality, especially in its classical linear Multivariate AutoRegressive (MAR) model form. Convergent-cross mapping (CCM), a nonparametric method developed for det…
This work is the first part of a project dealing with an in-depth study of effective techniques used in econometrics in order to make accurate forecasts in the concrete framework of one of the major economies of the most productive Italian area, namely the province of Verona. In particular, we develop an approach mainly based on vector autoregressions, where lagged values of two or more variables are considered, Granger causality, and the stochastic trend approach useful to work with the cointegration phenomenon. Latter techniques constitute the core of the present paper, whereas in the second…
One of the important and widely used classes of models for non-Gaussian time series is the generalized autoregressive model average models (GARMA), which specifies an ARMA structure for the conditional mean process of the underlying time series. However, in many applications one often encounters conditional heteroskedasticity. In this paper we propose a new class of models, referred to as GARMA-GARCH models, that jointly specify both the conditional mean and conditional variance processes of a general non-Gaussian time series. Under the general modeling framework, we propose three specific mod…
Identifying risk spillovers in financial markets is of great importance for assessing systemic risk and portfolio management. Granger causality in tail (or in risk) tests whether past extreme events of a time series help predicting future extreme events of another time series. The topology and connectedness of networks built with Granger causality in tail can be used to measure systemic risk and to identify risk transmitters. Here we introduce a novel test of Granger causality in tail which adopts the likelihood ratio statistic and is based on the multivariate generalization of a discrete auto…
In the study of complex physical and biological systems represented by multivariate stochastic processes, an issue of great relevance is the description of the system dynamics spanning multiple temporal scales. While methods to assess the dynamic complexity of individual processes at different time scales are well-established, multiscale analysis of directed interactions has never been formalized theoretically, and empirical evaluations are complicated by practical issues such as filtering and downsampling. Here we extend the very popular measure of Granger causality (GC), a prominent tool for…
In this paper, we propose multi-variable LSTM capable of accurate forecasting and variable importance interpretation for time series with exogenous variables. Current attention mechanism in recurrent neural networks mostly focuses on the temporal aspect of data and falls short of characterizing variable importance. To this end, the multi-variable LSTM equipped with tensorized hidden states is developed to learn hidden states for individual variables, which give rise to our mixture temporal and variable attention. Based on such attention mechanism, we infer and quantify variable importance. Ext…
ETH Zurich（苏黎世联邦理工学院）；EPFL Lausanne（洛桑联邦理工学院）；TalkingData Co., Ltd.（北京腾云天下科技有限公司）
In this paper, we propose an interpretable LSTM recurrent neural network, i.e., multi-variable LSTM for time series with exogenous variables. Currently, widely used attention mechanism in recurrent neural networks mostly focuses on the temporal aspect of data and falls short of characterizing variable importance. To this end, our multi-variable LSTM equipped with tensorized hidden states is developed to learn variable specific representations, which give rise to both temporal and variable level attention. Preliminary experiments demonstrate comparable prediction performance of multi-variable L…
A new mixture autoregressive model based on Student's $t$-distribution is proposed. A key feature of our model is that the conditional $t$-distributions of the component models are based on autoregressions that have multivariate $t$-distributions as their (low-dimensional) stationary distributions. That autoregressions with such stationary distributions exist is not immediate. Our formulation implies that the conditional mean of each component model is a linear function of past observations and the conditional variance is also time varying. Compared to previous mixture autoregressive models ou…
This paper introduces a new parsimonious structure for mixture of autoregressive models. the weighting coefficients are determined through latent random variables, following a hidden Markov model. We propose a dynamic programming algorithm for the application of forecasting. We also derive the limiting behavior of unconditional first moment of the process and an appropriate upper bound for the limiting value of the variance. This can be considered as long run behavior of the process. Finally we show convergence and stability of the second moment. Further, we illustrate the efficacy of the prop…
In this paper, we introduce a new spatial model that incorporates heteroscedastic variance depending on neighboring locations. The proposed process is regarded as the spatial equivalent to the temporal autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) model. We show additionally how the introduced spatial ARCH model can be used in spatiotemporal settings. In contrast to the temporal ARCH model, in which the distribution is known given the full information set of the prior periods, the distribution is not straightforward in the spatial and spatiotemporal setting. However, it is possible to e…
The primary goal of this paper is to develop a method that quantifies how activity in one brain region can explain future activity in another region. Here, we propose the mixed effects spectral vector-autoregressive (ME-SpecVar) model to investigate differences in dynamics of dependence in a brain network between healthy children and those who are diagnosed with ADHD. Specifically, ME-SpecVar model will be used to formally test for significant connectivity structure obtained using filtered EEG signals in delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands. The suggested model allows one-stage…
It is an important task in the literature to check whether a fitted autoregressive moving average (ARMA) model is adequate, while the currently used tests may suffer from the size distortion problem when the underlying autoregressive models have low persistence. To fill this gap, this paper proposes two empirical likelihood-based portmanteau tests. The first one is naive but can serve as a benchmark, and the second is for the case with infinite variance innovations. The asymptotic distributions under the null hypothesis are derived under mild moment conditions, and their usefulness is demonstr…
Will Southeast Asia be the next global manufacturing hub? A multiway cointegration, causality, and dynamic connectedness analyses on factors influencing offshore decisions
Understanding the dynamics of functional brain connectivity patterns using noninvasive neuroimaging techniques is an important focus in human neuroscience. Vector autoregressive (VAR) processes and Granger causality analysis (GCA) have been extensively used for this purpose. While high-resolution multi-subject neuroimaging data are routinely collected now-a-days, the statistics literature on VAR models has remained heavily focused on small-to-moderate dimensional problems and single-subject data. Motivated by these issues, we develop a novel Bayesian random effects panel VAR model for multi-su…
In this article we develop a tractable procedure for testing strict stationarity in a double autoregressive model and formulate the problem as testing if the top Lyapunov exponent is negative. Without strict stationarity assumption, we construct a consistent estimator of the associated top Lyapunov exponent and employ a random weighting approach for its variance estimation, which in turn are used in a t-type test. We also propose a GLAD estimation for parameters of interest, relaxing key assumptions on the commonly used QMLE. All estimators, except for the intercept, are shown to be consistent…
This paper introduces a multivariate spatiotemporal autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) model based on a vec-representation. The model includes instantaneous spatial autoregressive spill-over effects in the conditional variance, as they are usually present in spatial econometric applications. Furthermore, spatial and temporal cross-variable effects are explicitly modelled. We transform the model to a multivariate spatiotemporal autoregressive model using a log-squared transformation and derive a consistent quasi-maximum-likelihood estimator (QMLE). For finite samples and diffe…
The problem of testing instantaneous causality between variables with time-varying unconditional variance is investigated. It is shown that the classical tests based on the assumption of stationary processes must be avoided in our non standard framework. More precisely we underline that the standard test does not control the type I errors, while the tests with White (1980) and Heteroscedastic Autocorrelation Consistent (HAC) corrections can suffer from a severe loss of power when the variance is not constant. Consequently a modified test based on a bootstrap procedure is proposed. The relevanc…
The asymptotic properties of the variances of the spatial autoregressive model $X_{k,\ell}=αX_{k-1,\ell}+βX_{k,\ell-1}+γX_{k-1,\ell-1}+ε_{k,\ell}$ are investigated in the unit root case, that is when the parameters are on the boundary of domain of stability that forms a tetrahedron in $[-1,1]^3$. The limit of the variance of $n^{-\varrho}X_{[ns],[nt]}$ is determined, where on the interior of the faces of the domain of stability $\varrho=1/4$, on the edges $\varrho =1/2$, while on the vertices $\varrho =1$.
Here we dispel the lingering myth that Partial Directed Coherence is a Vector Autoregressive (VAR) Modelling dependent concept. In fact, our examples show that it is spectral factorization that lies at its heart, for which VAR modelling is a mere, albeit very efficient and convenient, device. This applies to Granger Causality estimation procedures in general and also includes instantaneous Granger effects. Care, however, must be exercised for connectivity between multivariate data generated through nonminimum phase mechanisms as it may possibly be incorrectly captured.
In this paper we derive control charts for the variance of a Gaussian process using the likelihood ratio approach, the generalized likelihood ratio approach, the sequential probability ratio method and a generalized sequential probability ratio procedure, the Shiryaev-Roberts procedure and a generalized Shiryaev-Roberts ap- proach. Recursive presentations for the calculation of the control statistics are given for autoregressive processes of order 1. In an extensive simulation study these schemes are compared with existing control charts for the variance. In order to asses the performance of t…
The limiting distribution for M-estimates in a non-stationary autoregressive model with heavy-tailed error is computationally intractable. To make inferences based on the M-estimates, the bootstrap procedure can be used to approximate the sampling distribution. In this paper, we show that the bootstrap scheme with $m=o(n)$ resampling sample size when $m/n \to 0$ is approximately valid in a multiple unit roots time series with innovations in the domain of attraction of a stable law with index $0<α\leq2$.
We propose a procedure to decide between the null hypothesis of (strict) stationarity and the alternative of non-stationarity, in the context of a Random Coefficient AutoRegression (RCAR). The procedure is based on randomising a diagnostic which diverges to positive infinity under the null, and drifts to zero under the alternative. Thence, we propose a randomised test which can be used directly and - building on it - a decision rule to discern between the null and the alternative. The procedure can be applied under very general circumstances: albeit developed for an RCAR model, it can be used …
We study goodness-of-fit testing for non-causal autoregressive time series with non-Gaussian stable noise. To model time series exhibiting sharp spikes or occasional bursts of outlying observations, the exponent of the non-Gaussian stable variables is assumed to be less than two. Under such conditions, the innovation variables have no finite second moment. We proved that the sample autocorrelation functions of the trimmed residuals are asymptotically normal. Nonparametric tests are also investigated. The rank correlations of the residuals or the squared residuals are shown to be asymptotically…
University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland（瑞士西部应用科学与艺术大学）；University of Geneva（日内瓦大学）
We consider the problem of learning models for forecasting multiple time-series systems together with discovering the leading indicators that serve as good predictors for the system. We model the systems by linear vector autoregressive models (VAR) and link the discovery of leading indicators to inferring sparse graphs of Granger-causality. We propose new problem formulations and develop two new methods to learn such models, gradually increasing the complexity of assumptions and approaches. While the first method assumes common structures across the whole system, our second method uncovers mod…
The identification of the lag length for vector autoregressive models by mean of Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Partial Autoregressive and Correlation Matrices (PAM and PCM hereafter) is studied in the framework of processes with time varying variance. It is highlighted that the use of the standard tools are not justified in such a case. As a consequence we propose an adaptive AIC which is robust to the presence of unconditional heteroscedasticity. Corrected confidence bounds are proposed for the usual PAM and PCM obtained from the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimation. The volatility s…
