Let f_n denote a kernel density estimator of a continuous density f in d dimensions, bounded and positive. Let Ψ(t) be a positive continuous function such that \|Ψf^β\|_{\infty}<\infty for some 0<β<1/2.
Under natural smoothness conditions, necessary and sufficient conditions for the sequence \sqrt\frac{nh_n^d}{2|\log h_n^d|}\|Ψ(t)(f_n(t)-Ef_n(t))\|_{\infty} to be stochastically bounded and to converge a.s. to a constant are obtained.
Also, the case of larger values of βis studied where a similar sequence with a different norming converges a.s. either to 0 or to +\infty, depending on convergence or divergence of a certain integral involving the tail probabilities of Ψ(X). The results apply as well to some discontinuous not strictly positive densities.
This paper deals with a homoskedastic errors-in-variables linear regression model and properties of the total least squares (TLS) estimator. We partly revise the consistency results for the TLS estimator previously obtained by the author [18]. We present complete and comprehensive proofs of consistency theorems. A theoretical foundation for construction of the TLS estimator and its relation to the generalized eigenvalue problem is explained. Particularly, the uniqueness of the estimate is proved. The Frobenius norm in the definition of the estimator can be substituted by the spectral norm, or …
We aim at analyzing in terms of a.s. convergence and weak rate the performances of the Multilevel Monte Carlo estimator (MLMC) introduced in [Gil08] and of its weighted version, the Multilevel Richardson Romberg estimator (ML2R), introduced in [LP14]. These two estimators permit to compute a very accurate approximation of $I_0 = \mathbb{E}[Y_0]$ by a Monte Carlo type estimator when the (non-degenerate) random variable $Y_0 \in L^2(\mathbb{P})$ cannot be simulated (exactly) at a reasonable computational cost whereas a family of simulatable approximations $(Y_h)_{h \in \mathcal{H}}$ is available…
Preferential attachment is widely used to model power-law behavior of degree distributions in both directed and undirected networks. Practical analyses on the tail exponent of the power-law degree distribution use the Hill estimator as one of the key summary statistics, whose consistency is justified mostly for iid data. The major goal in this paper is to answer the question whether the Hill estimator is still consistent when applied to non-iid network data. To do this, we first derive the asymptotic behavior of the degree sequence via embedding the degree growth of a fixed node into a birth i…
We consider Langevin equation involving fractional Brownian motion with Hurst index $H\in(0,\frac12)$. Its solution is the fractional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process and with unknown drift parameter $θ$. We construct the estimator that is similar in form to maximum likelihood estimator for Langevin equation with standard Brownian motion. Observations are discrete in time. It is assumed that the interval between observations is $n^{-1}$, i.e. tends to zero (high frequency data) and the number of observations increases to infinity as $n^m$ with $m>1$. It is proved that for positive $θ$ the estimator …
A new modification of the minimum-contrast estimator (the weighted MCE) of drift parameter in a linear stochastic evolution equation with additive fractional noise is introduced in the setting of the spectral approach (Fourier coordinates of the solution are observed). The reweighing technique, which utilizes the self-similarity property, achieves strong consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimator as number of coordinates increases and time horizon is fixed (the space consistency). In this respect, this modification outperforms the standard (non-weighted) minimum-contrast estimator. …
We generalize a method for proving uniform in bandwidth consistency results for kernel type estimators developed by the two last named authors. Such results are shown to be useful in establishing consistency of local polynomial estimators of the regression function.
We consider a one-dimensional recurrent random walk in random environment (RWRE) when the environment is i.i.d. with a parametric, finitely supported distribution. Based on a single observation of the path, we provide a maximum likelihood estimation procedure of the parameters of the environment. Unlike most of the classical maximum likelihood approach, the limit of the criterion function is in general a nondegenerate random variable and convergence does not hold in probability. Not only the leading term but also the second order asymptotics is needed to fully identify the unknown parameter. W…
We are interested in the rate of consistency of kernel density estimators with respect to the weighted sup-norm determined by some unbounded weight function. This problem has been considered by Gine, Koltchinskii and Zinn (2004) for a deterministic bandwidth sequence. We provide "uniform in h" versions of some of their results, allowing us to determine the corresponding rates of consistency for kernel density estimators where the bandwidth sequences may depend on the data and/or the location.
The aim of this article is to simplify Pfanzagl's proof of consistency for asymptotic maximum likelihood estimators, and to extend it to more general asymptotic M-estimators. The method relies on the existence of a sort of contraction of the parameter space which admits the true parameter as a fixed point. The proofs are short and elementary.
In finite mixtures of location-scale distributions, if there is no constraint or penalty on the parameters, then the maximum likelihood estimator does not exist because the likelihood is unbounded. To avoid this problem, we consider a penalized likelihood, where the penalty is a function of the minimum of the ratios of the scale parameters and the sample size. It is shown that the penalized maximum likelihood estimator is strongly consistent. We also analyze the consistency of a penalized maximum likelihood estimator where the penalty is imposed on the scale parameters themselves.
Importance sampling has become an important tool for the computation of tail-based risk measures. Since such quantities are often determined mainly by rare events standard Monte Carlo can be inefficient and importance sampling provides a way to speed up computations. This paper considers moderate deviations for the weighted empirical process, the process analogue of the weighted empirical measure, arising in importance sampling. The moderate deviation principle is established as an extension of existing results. Using a delta method for large deviations established by Gao and Zhao (Ann. Statis…
We simultaneously estimate the four parameters of a subcritical Heston process. We do not restrict ourself to the case where the stochastic volatility process never reaches zero. In order to avoid the use of unmanageable stopping times and natural but intractable estimator, we propose to make use of a weighted least squares estimator. We establish strong consistency and asymptotic normality for this estimator. Numerical simulations are also provided, illustrating the good performances of our estimation procedure.
This paper considers a simulation-based estimator for a general class of Markovian processes and explores some strong consistency properties of the estimator. The estimation problem is defined over a continuum of invariant distributions indexed by a vector of parameters. A key step in the method of proof is to show the uniform convergence (a.s.) of a family of sample distributions over the domain of parameters. This uniform convergence holds under mild continuity and monotonicity conditions on the dynamic process. The estimator is applied to an asset pricing model with technology adoption. A c…
We revisit the classical decision-theoretic problem of weighted expert voting from a statistical learning perspective. In particular, we examine the consistency (both asymptotic and finitary) of the optimal Nitzan-Paroush weighted majority and related rules. In the case of known expert competence levels, we give sharp error estimates for the optimal rule. When the competence levels are unknown, they must be empirically estimated. We provide frequentist and Bayesian analyses for this situation. Some of our proof techniques are non-standard and may be of independent interest. The bounds we deriv…
In 1991 Stute introduced a class of estimators called conditional U-statistics. They can be seen as a generalization of the Nadaraya-Watson estimator, and their strong pointwise consistency to the general regression function has been obtained in the same paper by Stute. Very recently, Gine and Mason introduced the notion of a local U-process, which generalizes that of a local empirical process, and obtained central limit theorems and laws of the iterated logarithm for this class. We apply the methods developed by Einmahl and Mason (2005) and Gine and Mason (2007a,b) to establish uniform in ban…
The article introduces spatial long-range dependent models based on the fractional difference operators associated with the Gegenbauer polynomials. The results on consistency and asymptotic normality of a class of minimum contrast estimators of long-range dependence parameters of the models are obtained. A methodology to verify assumptions for consistency and asymptotic normality of minimum contrast estimators is developed. Numerical results are presented to confirm the theoretical findings.
Multiplicative noise arises in inverse problems when, for example, uncertainty on measurements is proportional to the size of the measurement itself. The likelihood that arises is hence more complicated than that from additive noise. We consider two multiplicative noise models: purely multiplicative noise, and a mixture of multiplicative noise and additive noise. Adopting a Bayesian approach, we provide conditions for the resulting posterior distributions on Banach space to be continuous with respect to perturbations in the data; the inclusion of additive noise in addition to multiplicative no…
We prove the consistency of the Power-Law Fit PLFit method proposed by Clauset et al.(2009) to estimate the power-law exponent in data coming from a distribution function with regularly-varying tail. In the complex systems community, PLFit has emerged as the method of choice to estimate the power-law exponent. Yet, its mathematical properties are still poorly understood. The difficulty in PLFit is that it is a minimum-distance estimator. It first chooses a threshold that minimizes the Kolmogorov-Smirnov distance between the data points larger than the threshold and the Pareto tail, and then ap…
The class of observation-driven models (ODMs) includes many models of non-linear time series which, in a fashion similar to, yet different from, hidden Markov models (HMMs), involve hidden variables. Interestingly, in contrast to most HMMs, ODMs enjoy likelihoods that can be computed exactly with computational complexity of the same order as the number of observations, making maximum likelihood estimation the privileged approach for statistical inference for these models. A celebrated example of general order ODMs is the GARCH$(p,q)$ model, for which ergodicity and inference has been studied e…
We establish asymptotic properties of $M$-estimators, defined in terms of a contrast function and observations from a continuous-time locally stationary process. Using the stationary approximation of the sequence, $θ$-weak dependence, and hereditary properties, we give sufficient conditions on the contrast function that ensure consistency and asymptotic normality of the $M$-estimator. As an example, we obtain consistency and asymptotic normality of a localized least squares estimator for observations from a sequence of time-varying Lévy-driven Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. Furthermore, for a s…
The Kaplan-Meier product-limit estimator is a simple and powerful tool in time to event analysis. An extension exists for populations stratified into cohorts where a population survival curve is generated by weighted averaging of cohort-level survival curves. For making population-level comparisons using this statistic, we analyze the statistics of the area between two such weighted survival curves. We derive the large sample behavior of this statistic based on an empirical process of product-limit estimators. This estimator was used by an interdisciplinary NIH-SSA team in the identification o…
When analyzing modern machine learning algorithms, we may need to handle kernel density estimation (KDE) with intricate kernels that are not designed by the user and might even be irregular and asymmetric. To handle this emerging challenge, we provide a strong uniform consistency result with the $L^\infty$ convergence rate for KDE on Riemannian manifolds with Riemann integrable kernels (in the ambient Euclidean space). We also provide an $L^1$ consistency result for kernel density estimation on Riemannian manifolds with Lebesgue integrable kernels. The isotropic kernels considered in this pape…
