Elliptical distribution | EPFL Graph Search

In probability and statistics, an elliptical distribution is any member of a broad family of probability distributions that generalize the multivariate normal distribution. Intuitively, in the simplified two and three dimensional case, the joint distribution forms an ellipse and an ellipsoid, respectively, in iso-density plots. In statistics, the normal distribution is used in classical multivariate analysis, while elliptical distributions are used in generalized multivariate analysis, for the study of symmetric distributions with tails that are heavy, like the multivariate t-distribution, or light (in comparison with the normal distribution). Some statistical methods that were originally motivated by the study of the normal distribution have good performance for general elliptical distributions (with finite variance), particularly for spherical distributions (which are defined below). Elliptical distributions are also used in robust statistics to evaluate proposed multivariate-stati

Robust Portfolio Optimization

Zheng Wei Yap

Since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the financial market has become more unpredictable than ever before, and it seems set to remain so in the forseeable future. This means an investor faces unprecedented risks, hence the increasing need for robust portfolio optimization to protect them against uncertainty, which is potentially devastating if unattended yet ignored in the classical Markowitz model, whose another deficiency is the absence of higher moments in its assumption of the distribution of asset returns. We establish an equivalence between the Markowitz model and the portfolio return value-at-risk optimization problem under multivariate normality of asset returns, so that we can add these excluded features into the former implicitly by incorporating them into the latter. We also provide a probabilistic smoothing spline approximation method and a deterministic model within the location-scale framework under elliptical distribution of the asset returns to solve the robust portfolio return value-at-risk optimization problem. In particular for the deterministic model, we introduce a novel eigendecomposition uncertainty set which lives in the positive definite space for the scale matrix without compromising on the computational complexity and conservativeness of the optimization problem, invent a method to determine the size of the involved uncertainty sets, test it out on real data, and explore its diversification properties. Although the value-at-risk has been the standard risk measure adopted by the banking and insurance industry since the early nineties, it has since attracted many criticisms, in particular from McNeil et al. (2005) and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 2012, also known as Basel 3.5. Basel 4 even suggests a move away from the what" value-at-risk to the what-if" conditional value-at-risk' measure. We shall see that the former may be replaced with the latter or even other risk measures in our formulations easily.

EPFL2017

Contributions to Likelihood-Based Modelling of Extreme Values

Léo Raymond-Belzile

xtreme value analysis is concerned with the modelling of extreme events such as floods and heatwaves, which can have large impacts. Statistical modelling can be useful to better assess risks even if, due to scarcity of measurements, there is inherently very large residual uncertainty in any analysis. Driven by the increase in environmental databases, spatial modelling of extremes has expanded rapidly in the last decade. This thesis presents contributions to such analysis. The first chapter is about likelihood-based inference in the univariate setting and investigates the use of bias-correction and higher-order asymptotic methods for extremes, highlighting through examples and illustrations the unique challenge posed by data scarcity. We focus on parametric modelling of extreme values, which relies on limiting distributional results and for which, as a result, uncertainty quantification is complicated. We find that, in certain cases, small-sample asymptotic methods can give improved inference by reducing the error rate of confidence intervals. Two data illustrations, linked to assessment of the frequency of extreme rainfall episodes in Venezuela and the analysis of survival of supercentenarians, illustrate the methods developed. In the second chapter, we review the major methods for the analysis of spatial extremes models. We highlight the similarities and provide a thorough literature review along with novel simulation algorithms. The methods described therein are made available through a statistical software package. The last chapter focuses on estimation for a Bayesian hierarchical model derived from a multivariate generalized Pareto process. We review approaches for the estimation of censored components in models derived from (log)-elliptical distributions, paying particular attention to the estimation of a high-dimensional Gaussian distribution function via Monte Carlo methods. The impacts of model misspecification and of censoring are explored through extensive simulations and we conclude with a case study of rainfall extremes in Eastern Switzerland.

EPFL2019

Contributions to Likelihood-Based Modelling of Extreme Values

Léo Raymond-Belzile

EPFL2019

Robust Portfolio Optimization

Zheng Wei Yap

EPFL2017