Location adjustment for the minimum volume ellipsoid estimator.

Estimating multivariate location and scatter with both affine equivariance and positive breakdown has always been difficult. A well-known estimator which satisfies both properties is the Minimum Volume Ellipsoid Estimator (MVE). Computing the exact MVE is often not feasible, so one usually resorts to an approximate algorithm. In the regression setup, algorithms for positive-breakdown estimators like Least Median of Squares typically recompute the intercept at each step, to improve the result. This approach is called intercept adjustment. In this paper we show that a similar technique, called location adjustment, can be applied to the MVE. For this purpose we use the Minimum Volume Ball (MVB), in order to lower the MVE objective function. An exact algorithm for calculating the MVB is presented. As an alternative to MVB location adjustment we propose L-1 location adjustment, which does not necessarily lower the MVE objective function but yields more efficient estimates for the location part. Simulations compare the two types of location adjustment. We also obtain the maxbias curves of both L-1 and the MVB in the multivariate setting, revealing the superiority of L-1.Model;

Spatial Sign Correlation

A new robust correlation estimator based on the spatial sign covariance matrix (SSCM) is proposed. We derive its asymptotic distribution and influence function at elliptical distributions. Finite sample and robustness properties are studied and compared to other robust correlation estimators by means of numerical simulations.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, 2 table

Affine equivariant rank-weighted L-estimation of multivariate location

In the multivariate one-sample location model, we propose a class of flexible robust, affine-equivariant L-estimators of location, for distributions invoking affine-invariance of Mahalanobis distances of individual observations. An involved iteration process for their computation is numerically illustrated.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, 6 table

Multiariate Wavelet-based sahpe preserving estimation for dependant observation

We present a new approach on shape preserving estimation of probability distribution and density functions using wavelet methodology for multivariate dependent data. Our estimators preserve shape constraints such as monotonicity, positivity and integration to one, and allow for low spatial regularity of the underlying functions. As important application, we discuss conditional quantile estimation for financial time series data. We show that our methodology can be easily implemented with B-splines, and performs well in a finite sample situation, through Monte Carlo simulations.Conditional quantile; time series; shape preserving wavelet estimation; B-splines; multivariate process