Estimation methods for stochastic volatility models: a survey

Although stochastic volatility (SV) models have an intuitive appeal, their empirical application has been limited mainly due to difficulties involved in their estimation. The main problem is that the likelihood function is hard to evaluate. However, recently, several new estimation methods have been introduced and the literature on SV models has grown substantially. In this article, we review this literature. We describe the main estimators of the parameters and the underlying volatilities focusing on their advantages and limitations both from the theoretical and empirical point of view. We complete the survey with an application of the most important procedures to the S&P 500 stock price index.Publicad

Estimation methods for stochastic volatility models: a survey

The empirical application of Stochastic Volatility (SV) models has been limited due to the difficulties involved in the evaluation of the likelihood function. However, recently there has been fundamental progress in this area due to the proposal of several new estimation methods that try to overcome this problem, being at the same time, empirically feasible. As a consequence, several extensions of the SV models have been proposed and their empirical implementation is increasing. In this paper, we review the main estimators of the parameters and the volatility of univariate SV models proposed in the literature. We describe the main advantages and limitations of each of the methods both from the theoretical and empirical point of view. We complete the survey with an application of the most important procedures to the S and P 500 stock price index

The iterated auxiliary particle filter

We present an offline, iterated particle filter to facilitate statistical inference in general state space hidden Markov models. Given a model and a sequence of observations, the associated marginal likelihood L is central to likelihood-based inference for unknown statistical parameters. We define a class of "twisted" models: each member is specified by a sequence of positive functions psi and has an associated psi-auxiliary particle filter that provides unbiased estimates of L. We identify a sequence psi* that is optimal in the sense that the psi*-auxiliary particle filter's estimate of L has zero variance. In practical applications, psi* is unknown so the psi*-auxiliary particle filter cannot straightforwardly be implemented. We use an iterative scheme to approximate psi*, and demonstrate empirically that the resulting iterated auxiliary particle filter significantly outperforms the bootstrap particle filter in challenging settings. Applications include parameter estimation using a particle Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm

A Bayesian information criterion for singular models

We consider approximate Bayesian model choice for model selection problems that involve models whose Fisher-information matrices may fail to be invertible along other competing submodels. Such singular models do not obey the regularity conditions underlying the derivation of Schwarz's Bayesian information criterion (BIC) and the penalty structure in BIC generally does not reflect the frequentist large-sample behavior of their marginal likelihood. While large-sample theory for the marginal likelihood of singular models has been developed recently, the resulting approximations depend on the true parameter value and lead to a paradox of circular reasoning. Guided by examples such as determining the number of components of mixture models, the number of factors in latent factor models or the rank in reduced-rank regression, we propose a resolution to this paradox and give a practical extension of BIC for singular model selection problems

Equations of States in Statistical Learning for a Nonparametrizable and Regular Case

Many learning machines that have hierarchical structure or hidden variables are now being used in information science, artificial intelligence, and bioinformatics. However, several learning machines used in such fields are not regular but singular statistical models, hence their generalization performance is still left unknown. To overcome these problems, in the previous papers, we proved new equations in statistical learning, by which we can estimate the Bayes generalization loss from the Bayes training loss and the functional variance, on the condition that the true distribution is a singularity contained in a learning machine. In this paper, we prove that the same equations hold even if a true distribution is not contained in a parametric model. Also we prove that, the proposed equations in a regular case are asymptotically equivalent to the Takeuchi information criterion. Therefore, the proposed equations are always applicable without any condition on the unknown true distribution

A Class of Nonlinear Stochastic Volatility Models and Its Implications on Pricing Currency Options

This paper proposes a class of stochastic volatility (SV) models which offers an alternative to the one introduced in Andersen (1994). The class encompasses all standard SV models that have appeared in the literature, including the well known lognormal model, and allows us to empirically test all standard specifications in a convenient way. We develop a likelihood-based technique for analyzing the class. Daily dollar/pound exchange rate data reject all the standard models and suggest evidence of nonlinear SV. An efficient algorithm is proposed to study the implications of this nonlinear SV on pricing currency options and it is found that the lognormal model overprices options.Box-Cox transformations, Stochastic volatility, MCMC, Exchange rate volatility, Option pricing.

Multivariate stochastic volatility (Revised in May 2007, Handbook of Financial Time Series (Published in "Handbook of Financial Time Series" (eds T.G. Andersen, R.A. Davis, Jens-Peter Kreiss and T. Mikosch), 365-400. Springer-Verlag: New York. April 2009. )

The success of univariate stochastic volatility (SV) models in relation to univariate GARCH models has spurred an enormous interest in generalizations of SV models to a multivariate setting. A large number of multivariate SV (MSV) models are now available along with clearly articulated estimation recipes. Our goal in this paper is to provide the first detailed summary of the various model formulations, along with connections and differences, and discuss how the models are estimated. We aim to show that the developments and achievements in this area represent one of the great success stories of financial econometrics.

Equi-energy sampler with applications in statistical inference and statistical mechanics

We introduce a new sampling algorithm, the equi-energy sampler, for efficient statistical sampling and estimation. Complementary to the widely used temperature-domain methods, the equi-energy sampler, utilizing the temperature--energy duality, targets the energy directly. The focus on the energy function not only facilitates efficient sampling, but also provides a powerful means for statistical estimation, for example, the calculation of the density of states and microcanonical averages in statistical mechanics. The equi-energy sampler is applied to a variety of problems, including exponential regression in statistics, motif sampling in computational biology and protein folding in biophysics.Comment: This paper discussed in: [math.ST/0611217], [math.ST/0611219], [math.ST/0611221], [math.ST/0611222]. Rejoinder in [math.ST/0611224]. Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009053606000000515 in the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Testing mean-variance efficiency in CAPM with possibly non-gaussian errors: an exact simulation-based approach

In this paper we propose exact likelihood-based mean-variance efficiency tests of the market portfolio in the context of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), allowing for a wide class of error distributions which include normality as a special case. These tests are developed in the framework of multivariate linear regressions (MLR). It is well known however that despite their simple statistical structure, standard asymptotically justified MLR-based tests are unreliable. In financial econometrics, exact tests have been proposed for a few specific hypotheses [Jobson and Korkie (Journal of Financial Economics, 1982), MacKinlay (Journal of Financial Economics, 1987), Gibbons, Ross and Shanken (Econometrica, 1989), Zhou (Journal of Finance 1993)] most of which depend on normality. For the gaussian model, our tests correspond to Gibbons, Ross and Shanken's mean-variance efficiency tests. In non-gaussian contexts, we reconsider mean-variance efficiency tests allowing for multivariate Student-t and gaussian mixture errors. Our framework allows to cast more evidence on whether the normality assumption is too restrictive when testing the CAPM. We also propose exact multivariate diagnostic checks (including tests for multivariate GARCH and multivariate generalization of the well known variance ratio tests) and goodness of fit tests as well as a set estimate for the intervening nuisance parameters. Our results [over five-year subperiods] show the following: (i) multivariate normality is rejected in most subperiods, (ii) residual checks reveal no significant departures from the multivariate i.i.d. assumption, and (iii) mean-variance efficiency tests of the market portfolio is not rejected as frequently once it is allowed for the possibility of non-normal errors. -- In diesem Papier schlagen wir exakte likelihood-basierte Tests auf Mittelwert-Varianz- Effizienz im Rahmen des CAPM vor. Dabei wird eine breite Klasse von Verteilungen für den stochastischen Term zugelassen. Normalverteilung ist ein Spezialfall. Die Tests werden im Rahmen von multivariablen linearen Regressionen (MLR) entwickelt. Bekanntlich sind Standardtests, die auf MLR basieren und asymptotisch gerechtfertigt werden, nicht zuverlässig. In der Finanzökonometrie sind exakte Tests für einige wenige Hypothesen vorgeschlagen worden. Die meisten hängen von der Annahme der Normalverteilung ab (Jobson und Korkie (1982), Mac Kinley (1987), Gibbons, Ross und Shanken (1989), Zhou (1993)). Für das gaussianische Modell entsprechen unsere Tests denen von Gibbons, Ross und Shanken. Im nichtgaussianischen Modell betrachten wir Mittelwert-Varianz-Effizienz-Tests, wobei multivariate-Student-t und ?gemischte? Normalverteilungen zugelassen werden. Unser Ansatz gibt mehr Aufschluß darüber, ob die Annahme der Normalverteilung zu restriktiv ist, wenn das CAPM gestestet wird. Wir schlagen auch exakte multivariate Diagnosen (einschließlich Tests für multivariate GARCH-Modelle und multivariate Verallgemeinerungen der bekannten Varianz- Relationen-Tests) sowie Tests auf die Anpassungsgüte und eine Schätzung für die störenden Verschmutzungsparameter vor. Unsere Ergebnisse (für 5-Jahres-Perioden) zeigen das Folgende: (i) multivariate Normalität wird für die meisten Perioden verworfen (ii) die Überprüfung der Residuen zeigt keine signifikante Abweichung von der Annahme einer multivariaten i.i.d. Verteilung (iii), wenn man nichtnormalverteilte Fehler zulässt, werden Mittelwert-Varianz-Effizienz Tests des Marktportfolios seltener verworfen.capital assed pricing model,CAPM,mean-variance efficiency,nonnormality,multivariate linear regression,uniform linear hypothesis,exact test