Two key ingredients to carry out inference on the copula of multivariate observations are the empirical copula process and an appropriate resampling scheme for the latter. Among the existing techniques used for i.i.d. observations, the multiplier bootstrap of Rémillard and Scaillet (J. Multivariate Anal. 100 (2009) 377-386) frequently appears to lead to inference procedures with the best finite-sample properties. Bücher and Ruppert (J. Multivariate Anal. 116 (2013) 208-229) recently proposed an extension of this technique to strictly stationary strongly mixing observations by adapting the dependent multiplier bootstrap of Bühlmann (The blockwise bootstrap in time series and empirical processes (1993) ETH Zürich, Section 3.3) to the empirical copula process. The main contribution of this work is a generalization of the multiplier resampling scheme proposed by Bücher and Ruppert along two directions. First, the resampling scheme is now genuinely sequential, thereby allowing to transpose to the strongly mixing setting many of the existing multiplier tests on the unknown copula, including nonparametric tests for change-point detection. Second, the resampling scheme is now fully automatic as a data-adaptive procedure is proposed which can be used to estimate the bandwidth parameter. A simulation study is used to investigate the finite-sample performance of the resampling scheme and provides suggestions on how to choose several additional parameters. As by-products of this work, the validity of a sequential version of the dependent multiplier bootstrap for empirical processes of Bühlmann is obtained under weaker conditions on the strong mixing coefficients and the multipliers, and the weak convergence of the sequential empirical copula process is established under many serial dependence conditions.
Considering multivariate strongly mixing time series, nonparametric tests for a constant copula with specified or unspecified change point (candidate) are derived; the tests are consistent against general alternatives. A tapered block multiplier technique based on serially dependent multiplier random variables is provided to estimate p-values of the test statistics. Size and power of the tests in finite samples are evaluated with Monte Carlo simulations. The block multiplier technique might have several other applications for statistical inference on copulas of serially dependent data.
We study the weak convergence of conditional empirical copula processes, when the conditioning event has a nonzero probability. The validity of several bootstrap schemes is stated, including the exchangeable bootstrap. We define general - possibly conditional - multivariate dependence measures and their estimators. By applying our theoretical results, we prove the asymptotic normality of some estimators of such dependence measures.
The smooth bootstrap for estimating copula functionals in small samples is investigated. It can be used both to gauge the distribution of the estimator in question and to augment the data. Issues arising from kernel density and distribution estimation in the copula domain are addressed, such as how to avoid the bounded domain, which bandwidth matrix to choose, and how the smoothing can be carried out. Furthermore, we investigate how the smooth bootstrap impacts the underlying dependence structure or the functionals in question and under which conditions it does not. We provide specific example…
We propose a new goodness-of-fit test for copulas, based on empirical copula processes and their nonparametric bootstrap counterparts. The standard Kolmogorov-Smirnov type test for copulas that takes the supremum of the empirical copula process indexed by half spaces is extended by test statistics based on the supremum of the empirical copula process indexed by partitions of Ln rectangles with Ln slowly tending to infinity. Although the underlying empirical process does not converge, it is proved that the p-values of our new test statistic can be consistently estimated by the bootstrap. Simula…
The empirical beta copula is a simple but effective smoother of the empirical copula. Because it is a genuine copula, from which, moreover, it is particularly easy to sample, it is reasonable to expect that resampling procedures based on the empirical beta copula are expedient and accurate. In this paper, after reviewing the literature on some bootstrap approximations for the empirical copula process, we first show the asymptotic equivalence of several bootstrapped processes related to the empirical copula and empirical beta copula. Then we investigate the finite-sample properties of resamplin…
This paper investigates the theoretical underpinnings of two fundamental statistical inference problems, the construction of confidence sets and large-scale simultaneous hypothesis testing, in the presence of heavy-tailed data. With heavy-tailed observation noise, finite sample properties of the least squares-based methods, typified by the sample mean, are suboptimal both theoretically and empirically. In this paper, we demonstrate that the adaptive Huber regression, integrated with the multiplier bootstrap procedure, provides a useful robust alternative to the method of least squares. Our the…
We consider semiparametric transformation models, where after pre-estimation of a parametric transformation of the response the data are modeled by means of nonparametric regression. We suggest subsequent procedures for testing lack-of-fit of the regression function and for significance of covariables, which - in contrast to procedures from the literature - are asymptotically not influenced by the pre-estimation of the transformation. The test statistics are asymptotically pivotal and have the same asymptotic distribution as in regression models without transformation. We show validity of a mu…
We propose a new class of multiplier bootstraps for count functionals, ranging from a fast, approximate linear bootstrap tailored to sparse, massive graphs to a quadratic bootstrap procedure that offers refined accuracy for smaller, denser graphs. For the fast, approximate linear bootstrap, we show that $\sqrt{n}$-consistent inference of the count functional is attainable in certain computational regimes that depend on the sparsity level of the graph. Furthermore, even in more challenging regimes, we prove that our bootstrap procedure offers valid coverage and vanishing confidence intervals. F…
The asymptotic validity of a resampling method for two sequential processes constructed from non-degenerate $U$-statistics is established under mixing conditions. The resampling schemes, referred to as {\em dependent multiplier bootstraps}, result from an adaptation of the seminal approach of \cite{GomHor02} to mixing sequences. The proofs exploit recent results of \cite{DehWen10b} on degenerate $U$-statistics. A data-driven procedure for estimating a key bandwidth parameter involved in the resampling schemes is also suggested, making the use of the studied dependent multiplier bootstraps full…
The empirical copula process plays a central role for statistical inference on copulas. Recently, Segers (2011) investigated the asymptotic behavior of this process under non-restrictive smoothness assumptions for the case of i.i.d. random variables. In the present paper we extend his main result to the case of serial dependent random variables by means of the powerful and elegant functional delta method. Moreover, we utilize the functional delta method in order to obtain conditional consistency of certain bootstrap procedures. Finally, we extend the results to the more general sequential empi…
We propose a new test for the hypothesis that a bivariate copula is an Archimedean copula. The test statistic is based on a combination of two measures resulting from the characterization of Archimedean copulas by the property of associativity and by a strict upper bound on the diagonal by the Fréchet-upper bound. We prove weak convergence of this statistic and show that the critical values of the corresponding test can be determined by the multiplier bootstrap method. The test is shown to be consistent against all departures from Archimedeanity if the copula satisfies weak smoothness assumpti…
We derive strong approximations to the supremum of the non-centered empirical process indexed by a possibly unbounded VC-type class of functions by the suprema of the Gaussian and bootstrap processes. The bounds of these approximations are non-asymptotic, which allows us to work with classes of functions whose complexity increases with the sample size. The construction of couplings is not of the Hungarian type and is instead based on the Slepian-Stein methods and Gaussian comparison inequalities. The increasing complexity of classes of functions and non-centrality of the processes make the res…
In the extreme value analysis of time series, not only the tail behavior is of interest, but also the serial dependence plays a crucial role. Drees and Rootzén (2010) established limit theorems for a general class of empirical processes of so-called cluster functionals which can be used to analyse various aspects of the extreme value behavior of mixing time series. However, usually the limit distribution is too complex to enable a direct construction of confidence regions. Therefore, we suggest a multiplier block bootstrap analog to the empirical processes of cluster functionals. It is shown t…
Weak convergence of the empirical copula process is shown to hold under the assumption that the first-order partial derivatives of the copula exist and are continuous on certain subsets of the unit hypercube. The assumption is non-restrictive in the sense that it is needed anyway to ensure that the candidate limiting process exists and has continuous trajectories. In addition, resampling methods based on the multiplier central limit theorem, which require consistent estimation of the first-order derivatives, continue to be valid. Under certain growth conditions on the second-order partial deri…
In this paper we study the problem of constructing bootstrap confidence intervals for the Lévy density of the driving Lévy process based on high-frequency observations of a Lévy-driven moving average processes. Using a spectral estimator of the Lévy density, we propose a novel implementations of multiplier and empirical bootstraps to construct confidence bands on a compact set away from the origin. We also provide conditions under which the confidence bands are asymptotically valid.
We investigate the validity of two resampling techniques when carrying out inference on the underlying unknown copula using a recently proposed class of smooth, possibly data-adaptive nonparametric estimators that contains empirical Bernstein copulas (and thus the empirical beta copula). Following \cite{KirSegTsu21}, the first resampling technique is based on drawing samples from the smooth estimator and can only can be used in the case of independent observations. The second technique is a smooth extension of the so-called sequential dependent multiplier bootstrap and can thus be used in a ti…
The theory for multiplier empirical processes has been one of the central topics in the development of the classical theory of empirical processes, due to its wide applicability to various statistical problems. In this paper, we develop theory and tools for studying multiplier $U$-processes, a natural higher-order generalization of the multiplier empirical processes. To this end, we develop a multiplier inequality that quantifies the moduli of continuity of the multiplier $U$-process in terms of that of the (decoupled) symmetrized $U$-process. The new inequality finds a variety of applications…
Thanks to their ability to capture complex dependence structures, copulas are frequently used to glue random variables into a joint model with arbitrary marginal distributions. More recently, they have been applied to solve statistical learning problems such as regression or classification. Framing such approaches as solutions of estimating equations, we generalize them in a unified framework. We can then obtain simultaneous, coherent inferences across multiple regression-like problems. We derive consistency, asymptotic normality, and validity of the bootstrap for corresponding estimators. The…
Gaussian Approximation and Multiplier Bootstrap for Polyak-Ruppert Averaged Linear Stochastic Approximation with Applications to TD Learning
HSE University（高等经济大学）；Ecole Polytechnique（巴黎综合理工学院）；Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学）；Steklov Mathematical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院斯捷克洛夫数学研究所）
We derive a Gaussian approximation result for the maximum of a sum of high-dimensional random vectors. Specifically, we establish conditions under which the distribution of the maximum is approximated by that of the maximum of a sum of the Gaussian random vectors with the same covariance matrices as the original vectors. This result applies when the dimension of random vectors ($p$) is large compared to the sample size ($n$); in fact, $p$ can be much larger than $n$, without restricting correlations of the coordinates of these vectors. We also show that the distribution of the maximum of a sum…
Statistical inference in competing risks models is often based on the famous Aalen-Johansen estimator. Since the corresponding limit process lacks independent increments, it is typically applied together with Lin's (1997) resampling technique involving standard normal multipliers. Recently, it has been seen that this approach can be interpreted as a wild bootstrap technique and that other multipliers, as e.g. centered Poissons, may lead to better finite sample performances, see Beyersmann et al. (2013). Since the latter is closely related to Efron's classical bootstrap, the question arises whe…
It is often reasonable to assume that the dependence structure of a bivariate continuous distribution belongs to the class of extreme-value copulas. The latter are characterized by their Pickands dependence function. In this paper, a procedure is proposed for testing whether this function belongs to a given parametric family. The test is based on a Cramér--von Mises statistic measuring the distance between an estimate of the parametric Pickands dependence function and either one of two nonparametric estimators thereof studied by Genest and Segers [Ann. Statist. 37 (2009) 2990--3022]. As the li…
In Change point detection task Likelihood Ratio Test (LRT) is sequentially applied in a sliding window procedure. Its high values indicate changes of parametric distribution in the data sequence. Correspondingly LRT values require predefined bound for their maximum. The maximum value has unknown distribution and may be calibrated with multiplier bootstrap. Bootstrap procedure convolves independent components of the Likelihood function with random weights, that enables to estimate empirically LRT distribution. For this empirical distribution of the LRT we show convergence rates to the real maxi…
A factor copula model is proposed in which factors are either simulable or estimable from exogenous information. Point estimation and inference are based on a simulated methods of moments (SMM) approach with non-overlapping simulation draws. Consistency and limiting normality of the estimator is established and the validity of bootstrap standard errors is shown. Doing so, previous results from the literature are verified under low-level conditions imposed on the individual components of the factor structure. Monte Carlo evidence confirms the accuracy of the asymptotic theory in finite samples …
Copula modeling has gained much attention in many fields recently with the advantage of separating dependence structure from marginal distributions. In real data, however, serious ties are often present in one or multiple margins, which cause problems to many rank-based statistical methods developed under the assumption of continuous data with no ties. Simple methods such as breaking the ties at random or using average rank introduce independence into the data and, hence, lead to biased estimation. We propose an estimation method that treats the ranks of tied data as being interval censored an…
For the problem of estimating lower tail and upper tail copulas, we propose two bootstrap procedures for approximating the distribution of the corresponding empirical tail copulas. The first method uses a multiplier bootstrap of the empirical tail copula process and requires estimation of the partial derivatives of the tail copula. The second method avoids this estimation problem and uses multipliers in the two-dimensional empirical distribution function and in the estimates of the marginal distributions. For both multiplier bootstrap procedures, we prove consistency. For these investigations,…
This paper extends the analysis of bivariate seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) Tobit model by modeling its nonlinear dependence structure through the Clayton copula. The ability in capturing/modeling the lower tail dependence of the SUR Tobit model where some data are censored (generally, at zero point) is an additionally useful feature of the Clayton copula. We propose a modified version of the inference function for margins (IFM) method (Joe and Xu, 1996), which we refer to as MIFM method, to obtain the estimates of the marginal parameters and a better (satisfactory) estimate of the copul…
The bootstrap variance estimate is widely used in semiparametric inferences. However, its theoretical validity is a well known open problem. In this paper, we provide a {\em first} theoretical study on the bootstrap moment estimates in semiparametric models. Specifically, we establish the bootstrap moment consistency of the Euclidean parameter which immediately implies the consistency of $t$-type bootstrap confidence set. It is worth pointing out that the only additional cost to achieve the bootstrap moment consistency in contrast with the distribution consistency is to simply strengthen the $…
This paper is concerned with testing and dating structural breaks in the dependence structure of multivariate time series. We consider a cumulative sum (CUSUM) type test for constant copula-based dependence measures, such as Spearman's rank correlation and quantile dependencies. The asymptotic null distribution is not known in closed form and critical values are estimated by an i.i.d. bootstrap procedure. We analyze size and power properties in a simulation study under different dependence measure settings, such as skewed and fat-tailed distributions. To date break points and to decide whether…
We consider the problem of quantifying uncertainty for the estimation error of the leading eigenvector from Oja's algorithm for streaming principal component analysis, where the data are generated IID from some unknown distribution. By combining classical tools from the U-statistics literature with recent results on high-dimensional central limit theorems for quadratic forms of random vectors and concentration of matrix products, we establish a weighted $χ^2$ approximation result for the $\sin^2$ error between the population eigenvector and the output of Oja's algorithm. Since estimating the c…
A key tool to carry out inference on the unknown copula when modeling a continuous multivariate distribution is a nonparametric estimator known as the empirical copula. One popular way of approximating its sampling distribution consists of using the multiplier bootstrap. The latter is however characterized by a high implementation cost. Given the rank-based nature of the empirical copula, the classical empirical bootstrap of Efron does not appear to be a natural alternative, as it relies on resamples which contain ties. The aim of this work is to investigate the use of subsampling in the afore…
We consider bootstrap-based testing for threshold effects in non-linear threshold autoregressive (TAR) models. It is well-known that classic tests based on asymptotic theory tend to be oversized in the case of small, or even moderate sample sizes, or when the estimated parameters indicate non-stationarity, as often witnessed in the analysis of financial or climate data. To address the issue we propose a supremum Lagrange Multiplier test statistic (sLMb), where the null hypothesis specifies a linear autoregressive (AR) model against the alternative of a TAR model. We consider a recursive bootst…
The process comparing the empirical cumulative distribution function of the sample with a parametric estimate of the cumulative distribution function is known as the empirical process with estimated parameters and has been extensively employed in the literature for goodness-of-fit testing. The simplest way to carry out such goodness-of-fit tests, especially in a multivariate setting, is to use a parametric bootstrap. Although very easy to implement, the parametric bootstrap can become very computationally expensive as the sample size, the number of parameters, or the dimension of the data incr…
This paper develops bootstrap methods to construct uniform confidence bands for nonparametric spectral estimation of Lévy densities under high-frequency observations. We assume that we observe $n$ discrete observations at frequency $1/Δ> 0$, and work with the high-frequency setup where $Δ= Δ_{n} \to 0$ and $nΔ\to \infty$ as $n \to \infty$. We employ a spectral (or Fourier-based) estimator of the Lévy density, and develop novel implementations of Gaussian multiplier (or wild) and empirical (or Efron's) bootstraps to construct confidence bands for the spectral estimator on a compact set that doe…
We consider the problem of change point detection for high-dimensional distributions in a location family when the dimension can be much larger than the sample size. In change point analysis, the widely used cumulative sum (CUSUM) statistics are sensitive to outliers and heavy-tailed distributions. In this paper, we propose a robust, tuning-free (i.e., fully data-dependent), and easy-to-implement change point test that enjoys strong theoretical guarantees. To achieve the robust purpose in a nonparametric setting, we formulate the change point detection in the multivariate $U$-statistics framew…
We discuss the so-called "simplifying assumption" of conditional copulas in a general framework. We introduce several tests of the latter assumption for non- and semiparametric copula models. Some related test procedures based on conditioning subsets instead of point-wise events are proposed. The limiting distribution of such test statistics under the null are approximated by several bootstrap schemes, most of them being new. We prove the validity of a particular semiparametric bootstrap scheme. Some simulations illustrate the relevance of our results.
Purdue University（普渡大学）；University of Missouri（密苏里大学）
In this paper, we propose a bootstrap method applied to massive data processed distributedly in a large number of machines. This new method is computationally efficient in that we bootstrap on the master machine without over-resampling, typically required by existing methods \cite{kleiner2014scalable,sengupta2016subsampled}, while provably achieving optimal statistical efficiency with minimal communication. Our method does not require repeatedly re-fitting the model but only applies multiplier bootstrap in the master machine on the gradients received from the worker machines. Simulations valid…
The bootstrap is a popular and convenient method for quantifying the authority of an empirical ordering of attributes, for example of a ranking of the performance of institutions or of the influence of genes on a response variable. In the first of these examples, the number, $p$, of quantities being ordered is sometimes only moderate in size; in the second it can be very large, often much greater than sample size. However, we show that in both types of problem the conventional bootstrap can produce inconsistency. Moreover, the standard $n$-out-of-$n$ bootstrap estimator of the distribution of …
This paper considers the problem of testing the equality of two unspecified distributions. The classical omnibus tests such as the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Cramèr-von Mises are known to suffer from low power against essentially all but location-scale alternatives. We propose a new two-sample test that modifies the Neyman's smooth test and extend it to the multivariate case based on the idea of projection pursue. The asymptotic null property of the test and its power against local alternatives are studied. The multiplier bootstrap method is employed to compute the critical value of the multivaria…
We propose a new method for estimating the extreme quantiles for a function of several dependent random variables. In contrast to the conventional approach based on extreme value theory, we do not impose the condition that the tail of the underlying distribution admits an approximate parametric form, and, furthermore, our estimation makes use of the full observed data. The proposed method is semiparametric as no parametric forms are assumed on all the marginal distributions. But we select appropriate bivariate copulas to model the joint dependence structure by taking the advantage of the recen…
Simultaneous inference for high-dimensional non-Gaussian time series is always considered to be a challenging problem. Such tasks require not only robust estimation of the coefficients in the random process, but also deriving limiting distribution for a sum of dependent variables. In this paper, we propose a multiplier bootstrap procedure to conduct simultaneous inference for the transition coefficients in high-dimensional non-Gaussian vector autoregressive (VAR) models. This bootstrap-assisted procedure allows the dimension of the time series to grow exponentially fast in the number of observ…
The Bonferroni adjustment, or the union bound, is commonly used to study rate optimality properties of statistical methods in high-dimensional problems. However, in practice, the Bonferroni adjustment is overly conservative. The extreme value theory has been proven to provide more accurate multiplicity adjustments in a number of settings, but only on ad hoc basis. Recently, Gaussian approximation has been used to justify bootstrap adjustments in large scale simultaneous inference in some general settings when $n \gg (\log p)^7$, where $p$ is the multiplicity of the inference problem and $n$ is…
Cumulative sum (CUSUM) statistics are widely used in the change point inference and identification. For the problem of testing for existence of a change point in an independent sample generated from the mean-shift model, we introduce a Gaussian multiplier bootstrap to calibrate critical values of the CUSUM test statistics in high dimensions. The proposed bootstrap CUSUM test is fully data-dependent and it has strong theoretical guarantees under arbitrary dependence structures and mild moment conditions. Specifically, we show that with a boundary removal parameter the bootstrap CUSUM test enjoy…
In this paper, we derive new, nearly optimal bounds for the Gaussian approximation to scaled averages of $n$ independent high-dimensional centered random vectors $X_1,\dots,X_n$ over the class of rectangles in the case when the covariance matrix of the scaled average is non-degenerate. In the case of bounded $X_i$'s, the implied bound for the Kolmogorov distance between the distribution of the scaled average and the Gaussian vector takes the form $$C (B^2_n \log^3 d/n)^{1/2} \log n,$$ where $d$ is the dimension of the vectors and $B_n$ is a uniform envelope constant on components of $X_i$'s. T…
