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Paul Doukhan

Publications and source records attributed to Paul Doukhan.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Functional dependence and synchronous coupling in ergodic autoregressions

Functional dependence measures have become an important tool in the analysis of nonlinear time series and are typically formulated with respect to a given innovation representation of the process. This note points out that the probability space on which such representations yield the expected memory loss properties may not always coincide with the natural dynamical probability space of the model. We exhibit classes of uniformly ergodic autoregressive processes for which the behavior of the natural innovation coupling undergoes a qualitative transition as the model parameter varies. For this family of models, this transition coincides with a change in the sign of an associated Lyapunov exponent. In particular, a positive Lyapunov exponent may prevent the forgetting of initial perturbations along trajectories driven by the same innovations, despite uniform ergodicity of the associated Markov chain. These observations highlight the importance of carefully specifying the underlying probability space when interpreting or applying functional dependence measures.

math.ST

Inferring the parameters of Taylor's law in ecology

Taylor's power law (TL) or fluctuation scaling has been verified empirically for the abundances of many species, human and non-human, and in many other fields including physics, meteorology, computer science, and finance. TL asserts that the variance is directly proportional to a power of the mean, exactly for population moments and, whether or not population moments exist, approximately for sample moments. In many papers, linear regression of log variance as a function of log mean is used to estimate TL's parameters. We provide some statistical guarantees with large-sample asymptotics for this kind of inference under general conditions, and we derive confidence intervals for the parameters. In many ecological applications, the means and variances are estimated over time or across space from arrays of abundance data collected at different locations and time points. When the ratio between the time-series length and the number of spatial points converges to a constant as both become large, the usual normalized statistics are asymptotically biased. We provide a bias correction to get correct confidence intervals. TL, widely studied in multiple sciences, is a source of challenging new statistical problems in a nonstationary spatiotemporal framework. We illustrate our results with both simulated and real data sets.

stat.ME

Deviation inequalities for contractive infinite memory processes

In this paper, we introduce a class of processes that contains many natural examples. The interesting feature of such type processes lays on its infinite memory that allows it to record a quite ancient history. Then, using the martingale decomposition method, we establish some deviation and moment inequalities for separately Lipschitz functions of such a process, under various moment conditions on some dominating random variables. Our results generalize the Markov models of Dedecker and Fan [Stochastic Process. Appl., 2015] and a recent paper by Chazottes et al. [Ann. Appl. Probab., 2023] for the special case of a specific class of infinite memory models with discrete values. An application to stochastic gradient Langevin dynamic algorithm is also discussed.

math.PR

Cramér moderate deviations for a supercritical Galton-Watson process

Let $(Z_n)_{n\geq0}$ be a supercritical Galton-Watson process. The Lotka-Nagaev estimator $Z_{n+1}/Z_n$ is a common estimator for the offspring mean.In this paper, we establish some Cramér moderate deviation results for the Lotka-Nagaev estimator via a martingale method. Applications to construction of confidence intervals are also given.

math.PR

Deviation inequalities for stochastic approximation by averaging

We introduce a class of Markov chains, that contains the model of stochastic approximation by averaging and non-averaging. Using martingale approximation method, we establish various deviation inequalities for separately Lipschitz functions of such a chain, with different moment conditions on some dominating random variables of martingale differences.Finally, we apply these inequalities to the stochastic approximation by averaging and empirical risk minimisation.

math.PR

Mixing properties of non-stationary INGARCH(1,1) processes

We derive mixing properties for a broad class of Poisson count time series satisfying a certain contraction condition. Using specific coupling techniques, we prove absolute regularity at a geometric rate not only for stationary Poisson-GARCH processes but also for models with an explosive trend. We provide easily verifiable sufficient conditions for absolute regularity for a variety of models including classical (log-)linear models. Finally, we illustrate the practical use of our results for hypothesis testing.

math.PR

A Dynamic Taylor's Law

Taylor's power law (or fluctuation scaling) states that on comparable populations, the variance of each sample is approximately proportional to a power of the mean of the population. It has been shown to hold by empirical observations in a broad class of disciplines including demography, biology, economics, physics and mathematics. In particular, it has been observed in the problems involving population dynamics, market trading, thermodynamics and number theory. For this many authors consider panel data in order to obtain laws of large numbers and the possibility to fit those expressions; essentially we aim at considering ergodic behaviors without independence. Thus we restrict the study to stationary time series and we develop different Taylor exponents in this setting. From a theoretic point of view, there has been a growing interest on the study of the behavior of such a phenomenon. Most of these works focused on the so-called static Taylor related to independent samples. In this paper, we introduce a dynamic Taylor's law for dependent samples using self-normalised expressions involving Bernstein blocks. A central limit theorem (CLT) is proved under either weak dependence or strong mixing assumptions for the marginal process. The limit behavior of such a new index involves the series of covariances unlike the classic framework where the limit behavior involves the marginal variance. We also provide an asymptotic result for for a goodness-of-fit testing suited to check whether the corresponding dynamical Taylor's law holds in empirical studies. Moreover, we also obtain a consistent estimation of the Taylor's exponent.

math.ST

Mixing properties of Skellam-GARCH processes

We consider integer-valued GARCH processes, where the count variable conditioned on past values of the count and state variables follows a so-called Skellam distribution. Using arguments for contractive Markov chains we prove that the process has a unique stationary regime. Furthermore, we show asymptotic regularity ($β$-mixing) with geometrically decaying coefficients for the count process. These probabilistic results are complemented by a statistical analysis, a few simulations as well as an application to recent COVID-19 data.

math.ST

Stationarity and ergodic properties for some observation-driven models in random environments

The first motivation of this paper is to study stationarity and ergodic properties for a general class of time series models defined conditional on an exogenous covariates process. The dynamic of these models is given by an autoregressive latent process which forms a Markov chain in random environments. Contrarily to existing contributions in the field of Markov chains in random environments, the state space is not discrete and we do not use small set type assumptions or uniform contraction conditions for the random Markov kernels. Our assumptions are quite general and allows to deal with models that are not fully contractive, such as threshold autoregressive processes. Using a coupling approach, we study the existence of a limit, in Wasserstein metric, for the backward iterations of the chain. We also derive ergodic properties for the corresponding skew-product Markov chain. Our results are illustrated with many examples of autoregressive processes widely used in statistics or in econometrics, including GARCH type processes, count autoregressions and categorical time series.

math.ST

High dimensional VAR with low rank transition

We propose a vector auto-regressive (VAR) model with a low-rank constraint on the transition matrix. This new model is well suited to predict high-dimensional series that are highly correlated, or that are driven by a small number of hidden factors. We study estimation, prediction, and rank selection for this model in a very general setting. Our method shows excellent performances on a wide variety of simulated datasets. On macro-economic data from Giannone et al. (2015), our method is competitive with state-of-the-art methods in small dimension, and even improves on them in high dimension.

math.ST

Spectral estimation for non-linear long range dependent discrete time trawl processes

Discrete time trawl processes constitute a large class of time series parameterized by a trawl sequence (a j) j$\in$N and defined though a sequence of independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) copies of a continuous time process ($γ$(t)) t$\in$R called the seed process. They provide a general framework for modeling linear or non-linear long range dependent time series. We investigate the spectral estimation, either pointwise or broadband, of long range dependent discrete-time trawl processes. The difficulty arising from the variety of seed processes and of trawl sequences is twofold. First, the spectral density may take different forms, often including smooth additive correction terms. Second, trawl processes with similar spectral densities may exhibit very different statistical behaviors. We prove the consistency of our estimators under very general conditions and we show that a wide class of trawl processes satisfy them. This is done in particular by introducing a weighted weak dependence index that can be of independent interest. The broadband spectral estimator includes an estimator of the long memory parameter. We complete this work with numerical experiments to evaluate the finite sample size performance of this estimator for various integer valued discrete time trawl processes.

math.ST

Exponential inequalities for nonstationary Markov Chains

Exponential inequalities are main tools in machine learning theory. To prove exponential inequalities for non i.i.d random variables allows to extend many learning techniques to these variables. Indeed, much work has been done both on inequalities and learning theory for time series, in the past 15 years. However, for the non independent case, almost all the results concern stationary time series. This excludes many important applications: for example any series with a periodic behavior is non-stationary. In this paper, we extend the basic tools of Dedecker and Fan (2015) to nonstationary Markov chains. As an application, we provide a Bernstein-type inequality, and we deduce risk bounds for the prediction of periodic autoregressive processes with an unknown period.

stat.ML

Non-parametric estimation of time varying AR(1)--processes with local stationarity and periodicity

Extending the ideas of [7], this paper aims at providing a kernel based non-parametric estimation of a new class of time varying AR(1) processes (Xt), with local stationarity and periodic features (with a known period T), inducing the definition Xt = at(t/nT)X t--1 + $ξ$t for t $\in$ N and with a t+T $\not\equiv$ at. Central limit theorems are established for kernel estima-tors as(u) reaching classical minimax rates and only requiring low order moment conditions of the white noise ($ξ$t)t up to the second order.

math.ST

Absolute regularity of semi-contractive GARCH-type processes

We prove existence and uniqueness of a stationary distribution and absolute regularity for nonlinear GARCH and INGARCH models of order (p,q). In contrast to previous work we impose, besides a geometric drift condition, only a semi-contractive condition which allows us to include models which would be ruled out by a fully contractive condition. This results in a subgeometric rather than the more usual geometric decay rate of the mixing coefficients. The proofs are heavily based on a coupling of two versions of the processes.We prove existence and uniqueness of a stationary distribution and absolute regularity for nonlinear GARCH and INGARCH models of order (p,q). In contrast to previous work we impose, besides a geometric drift condition, only a semi-contractive condition which allows us to include models which would be ruled out by a fully contractive condition. This results in a subgeometric rather than the more usual geometric decay rate of the mixing coefficients. The proofs are heavily based on a coupling of two versions of the processes. An extension of our results to non-stationary time series is also provided and we discuss some applications.

math.PR

Multivariate Count Autoregression

We are studying the problems of modeling and inference for multivariate count time series data with Poisson marginals. The focus is on linear and log-linear models. For studying the properties of such processes we develop a novel conceptual framework which is based on copulas. However, our approach does not impose the copula on a vector of counts; instead the joint distribution is determined by imposing a copula function on a vector of associated continuous random variables. This specific construction avoids conceptual difficulties resulting from the joint distribution of discrete random variables yet it keeps the properties of the Poisson process marginally. We employ Markov chain theory and the notion of weak dependence to study ergodicity and stationarity of the models we consider. We obtain easily verifiable conditions for both linear and log-linear models under both theoretical frameworks. Suitable estimating equations are suggested for estimating unknown model parameters. The large sample properties of the resulting estimators are studied in detail. The work concludes with some simulations and a real data example.

stat.ME

Discrete-time trawl processes with long memory

We introduce a class of discrete time stationary trawl processes taking real or integer values and written as sums of past values of independent `seed' processes on shrinking intervals (`trawl heights'). Related trawl processes in continuous time were studied in Barndorff-Nielsen (2011) and Barndorff-Nielsen et al. (2014), however in our case, the i.i.d. seed processes can be very general and need not be infinitely divisible. In the case when the trawl height decays with the lag as $j^{-α}$ for some $1< α< 2 $, the trawl process exhibits long memory and its covariance decays as $j^{1-α}$. We show that under general conditions on generic seed process, the normalized partial sums of such trawl process may tend either to a fractional Brownian motion or to an $α$-stable Lévy process.

math.PR

Empirical central limit theorem for cluster functionals without mixing

We prove central limit theorems (CLT) for empirical processes of extreme values cluster functionals as in Drees and Rootzén (2010). We use coupling properties enlightened for Dedecker \& Prieur's $τ-$dependence coefficients in order to improve the conditions of dependence and continue to obtain these CLT. The assumptions are precisely set for particular processes and cluster functionals of interest. The number of excesses provides a complete example of a cluster functional for a simple non-mixing model (AR(1)-process) for which ours results are definitely needed. We also give the expression explicit the covariance structure of limit Gaussian process. Also we include in this paper some results of Drees (2011) for the extremal index and some simulations for this index to demonstrate the accuracy of this technique.

math.PR