Discretisation of Stochastic Control Problems for Continuous Time Dynamics with Delay

As a main step in the numerical solution of control problems in continuous time, the controlled process is approximated by sequences of controlled Markov chains, thus discretizing time and space. A new feature in this context is to allow for delay in the dynamics. The existence of an optimal strategy with respect to the cost functional can be guaranteed in the class of relaxed controls. Weak convergence of the approximating extended Markov chains to the original process together with convergence of the associated optimal strategies is established.Markov, Markov chain, time dynamics, stochastic control problem

On rate optimality for ill-posed inverse problems in econometrics

In this paper, we clarify the relations between the existing sets of regularity conditions for convergence rates of nonparametric indirect regression (NPIR) and nonparametric instrumental variables (NPIV) regression models. We establish minimax risk lower bounds in mean integrated squared error loss for the NPIR and the NPIV models under two basic regularity conditions that allow for both mildly ill-posed and severely ill-posed cases. We show that both a simple projection estimator for the NPIR model, and a sieve minimum distance estimator for the NPIV model, can achieve the minimax risk lower bounds, and are rate-optimal uniformly over a large class of structure functions, allowing for mildly ill-posed and severely ill-posed cases.Comment: 27 page

Asymptotic statistical equivalence for ergodic diffusions: the multidimensional case

Asymptotic local equivalence in the sense of Le Cam is established for inference on the drift in multidimensional ergodic diffusions and an accompanying sequence of Gaussian shift experiments. The nonparametric local neighbourhoods can be attained for any dimension, provided the regularity of the drift is sufficiently large. In addition, a heteroskedastic Gaussian regression experiment is given, which is also locally asymptotically equivalent and which does not depend on the centre of localisation. For one direction of the equivalence an explicit Markov kernel is constructed.Comment: 03 May 2005, 23 page

Exact and Asymptotic Tests on a Factor Model in Low and Large Dimensions with Applications

In the paper, we suggest three tests on the validity of a factor model which can be applied for both small dimensional and large dimensional data. Both the exact and asymptotic distributions of the resulting test statistics are derived under classical and high-dimensional asymptotic regimes. It is shown that the critical values of the proposed tests can be calibrated empirically by generating a sample from the inverse Wishart distribution with identity parameter matrix. The powers of the suggested tests are investigated by means of simulations. The results of the simulation study are consistent with the theoretical findings and provide general recommendations about the application of each of the three tests. Finally, the theoretical results are applied to two real data sets, which consist of returns on stocks from the DAX index and on stocks from the S&P 500 index. Our empirical results do not support the hypothesis that all linear dependencies between the returns can be entirely captured by the factors considered in the paper

Nonlinear estimation for linear inverse problems with error in the operator

We study two nonlinear methods for statistical linear inverse problems when the operator is not known. The two constructions combine Galerkin regularization and wavelet thresholding. Their performances depend on the underlying structure of the operator, quantified by an index of sparsity. We prove their rate-optimality and adaptivity properties over Besov classes.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009053607000000721 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Posterior contraction rates for support boundary recovery

Given a sample of a Poisson point process with intensity $\lambda_f(x,y) = n \mathbf{1}(f(x) \leq y),$ we study recovery of the boundary function $f$ from a nonparametric Bayes perspective. Because of the irregularity of this model, the analysis is non-standard. We establish a general result for the posterior contraction rate with respect to the $L^1$-norm based on entropy and one-sided small probability bounds. From this, specific posterior contraction results are derived for Gaussian process priors and priors based on random wavelet series

On rate optimality for ill-posed inverse problems in econometrics

In this paper, we clarify the relations between the existing sets of regularity conditions for convergence rates of nonparametric indirect regression (NPIR) and nonparametric instrumental variables (NPIV) regression models. We establish minimax risk lower bounds in mean integrated squared error loss for the NPIR and the NPIV models under two basic regularity conditions that allow for both mildly ill-posed and severely ill-posed cases.We show that both a simple projection estimator for the NPIR model, and a sieve minimum distance estimator for the NPIV model,can achieve the minimax risk lower bounds, and are rate-optimal uniformly over a large class of structure functions, allowing for mildly ill-posed and severely ill-posed cases.