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Hierarchical Kendall copulas: Properties and inference
Author(s) -
Brechmann Eike Christian
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
canadian journal of statistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.804
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1708-945X
pISSN - 0319-5724
DOI - 10.1002/cjs.11204
Subject(s) - univariate , copula (linguistics) , mathematics , econometrics , inference , statistical inference , multivariate statistics , bivariate analysis , probability integral transform , random variable , statistics , marginal distribution , computer science , artificial intelligence
While there is substantial need for dependence models in higher dimensions, most existing models quickly become rather restrictive and barely balance parsimony and flexibility. Hierarchical constructions may improve on that by grouping variables in different levels. In this paper, the new class of hierarchical Kendall copulas is proposed and discussed. Hierarchical Kendall copulas are built up by flexible copulas specified for groups of variables, where aggregation is facilitated by the Kendall distribution function, the multivariate analog to the probability integral transform for univariate random variables. After deriving properties of the general model formulation, particular focus is given to inference techniques of hierarchical Kendall copulas with Archimedean components, for which closed‐form analytical expressions can be derived. A substantive application to German stock returns finally shows that hierarchical Kendall copulas perform very well for real data, out‐of‐ as well as in‐sample. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 42: 78–108; 2014 © 2014 Statistical Society of Canada