We develop a specification test for the transition density of a discretely sampled continuous-time jump-diffusion process, based on a comparison of a nonparametric estimate of the transition density or distribution function with their corresponding parametric counterparts assumed by the null hypothesis. As a special case, our method applies to pure diffusions. We provide a direct comparison of the two densities for an arbitrary specification of the null parametric model using three different discrepancy measures between the null and alternative transition density and distribution functions. We establish the asymptotic null distributions of proposed test statistics and compute their power functions. We investigate the finite-sample properties through simulations and compare them with those of other tests. This article has supplementary material online.

The non-Gaussian maximum likelihood estimator is frequently used in GARCH models with the intention of capturing heavy-tailed returns. However, unless the parametric likelihood family contains the true likelihood, the estimator is inconsistent due to density misspecification. To correct this bias, we identify an unknown scale parameter _<i>f</i> that is critical to the identification for consistency and propose a three-step quasi-maximum likelihood procedure with non-Gaussian likelihood functions. This novel approach is consistent and asymptotically normal under weak moment conditions. Moreover, it achieves better efficiency than the Gaussian alternative, particularly when the innovation error has heavy tails. We also summarize and compare the values of the scale parameter and the asymptotic efficiency for estimators based on different choices of likelihood functions with an increasing level of heaviness in the

Statistical and machine learning theory has developed several conditions ensuring that popular estimators such as the Lasso or the Dantzig selector perform well in high-dimensional sparse regression, including the restricted eigenvalue, compatibility, and q sensitivity properties. However, some of the central aspects of these conditions are not well understood. For instance, it is unknown if these conditions can be checked efficiently on any given dataset. This is problematic, because they are at the core of the theory of sparse regression. Here we provide a rigorous proof that these conditions are NP-hard to check. This shows that the conditions are computationally infeasible to verify, and raises some questions about their practical applications. However, by taking an average-case perspective instead of the worst-case view of NP-hardness, we show that a particular condition, q sensitivity, has certain

Local polynomial fitting has many exciting statistical properties which where established under i.i.d. setting. However, the need for nonlinea r time series modeling, constructing predictive intervals, understanding divergence of nonlinear time series requires the development of the theory of local polynomial fitting for dependent data. In this paper, we study the problem of estimating conditional mean functions and their derivatives via a local polynomial fit. The functions include conditional moments, conditional distribution as well as conditional density functions. Joint asymptotic normality for derivative estimation is established for both strongly mixing and mixing processes.

Two measures of sensitivity to initial conditions in nonlinear time series are proposed. The notions give some insight into the relationship between the Fisher information in statistical estimation and initial-value sensitivity in dynamical systems. By using the locally polynomial regression, we develop nonparametric estimates for a conditional density function, its square root and its partial derivatives. The proposed procedures are innovative and of interests in their own right. They are also used to estimate the sensitive measures. The asymptotic normality of the proposed estimators have been proved. We also propose a simple and intuitively appealing method for choosing the bandwidths. Two simulated examples are used as illustrations.