4,069 research outputs found
Penalized Likelihood and Bayesian Function Selection in Regression Models
Challenging research in various fields has driven a wide range of
methodological advances in variable selection for regression models with
high-dimensional predictors. In comparison, selection of nonlinear functions in
models with additive predictors has been considered only more recently. Several
competing suggestions have been developed at about the same time and often do
not refer to each other. This article provides a state-of-the-art review on
function selection, focusing on penalized likelihood and Bayesian concepts,
relating various approaches to each other in a unified framework. In an
empirical comparison, also including boosting, we evaluate several methods
through applications to simulated and real data, thereby providing some
guidance on their performance in practice
Identification of Stochastic Wiener Systems using Indirect Inference
We study identification of stochastic Wiener dynamic systems using so-called
indirect inference. The main idea is to first fit an auxiliary model to the
observed data and then in a second step, often by simulation, fit a more
structured model to the estimated auxiliary model. This two-step procedure can
be used when the direct maximum-likelihood estimate is difficult or intractable
to compute. One such example is the identification of stochastic Wiener
systems, i.e.,~linear dynamic systems with process noise where the output is
measured using a non-linear sensor with additive measurement noise. It is in
principle possible to evaluate the log-likelihood cost function using numerical
integration, but the corresponding optimization problem can be quite intricate.
This motivates studying consistent, but sub-optimal, identification methods for
stochastic Wiener systems. We will consider indirect inference using the best
linear approximation as an auxiliary model. We show that the key to obtain a
reliable estimate is to use uncertainty weighting when fitting the stochastic
Wiener model to the auxiliary model estimate. The main technical contribution
of this paper is the corresponding asymptotic variance analysis. A numerical
evaluation is presented based on a first-order finite impulse response system
with a cubic non-linearity, for which certain illustrative analytic properties
are derived.Comment: The 17th IFAC Symposium on System Identification, SYSID 2015,
Beijing, China, October 19-21, 201
Common price and volatility jumps in noisy high-frequency data
We introduce a statistical test for simultaneous jumps in the price of a
financial asset and its volatility process. The proposed test is based on
high-frequency data and is robust to market microstructure frictions. For the
test, local estimators of volatility jumps at price jump arrival times are
designed using a nonparametric spectral estimator of the spot volatility
process. A simulation study and an empirical example with NASDAQ order book
data demonstrate the practicability of the proposed methods and highlight the
important role played by price volatility co-jumps
Classical vs. Bayesian methods for linear system identification: point estimators and confidence sets
This paper compares classical parametric methods with recently developed
Bayesian methods for system identification. A Full Bayes solution is considered
together with one of the standard approximations based on the Empirical Bayes
paradigm. Results regarding point estimators for the impulse response as well
as for confidence regions are reported.Comment: number of pages = 8, number of figures =
Are Errors in Official U.S. Budget Receipts Forecasts Just Noise?
Existing evidence suggests that U.S. Government budget receipts forecasts are unbiased and efficient. Our study is an attempt to examine the veracity of these findings. The time series framework employed in this study is distinguished from previous work in three ways. First, we build a model that explicitly admits serial correlation in the residuals by allowing for autoregressive, moving-average, serial correlation. Second, we employ the nonparametric Monte-Carlo bootstrap to free ourselves from reliance on asymptotic distribution theory which is suspect given the short data series available for this study. Third, we control for errors in the macroeconomic and financial assumptions used to produce the U.S. Government's budget forecasts. We find that the U.S. Government's annual, one-year ahead, budget receipts forecasts for fiscal years 1963 through 2003 are biased and inefficient. In addition, we find that these forecasts exhibit serial correlation in their errors and thus do not efficiently exploit all available information. Finally, we find evidence that is consistent with strategic bias that may reflect the political goals of the Administration in power. Working Paper 07-2
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