Convergence of Probability Measures. By P. Billingsley. Chichester, Sussex, Wiley, 1968. xii, 253 p. 9 1/4“. 117s.

Convergence of Probability Measures

On robust estimation of the location parameter

The author's preface gives an outline: "This book is about weakconvergence methods in metric spaces, with applications sufficient to show their power and utility. The Introduction motivates the definitions and indicates how the theory will yield solutions to problems arising outside it. Chapter 1 sets out the basic general theorems, which are then specialized in Chapter 2 to the space C[0, l ] of continuous functions on the unit interval and in Chapter 3 to the space D [0, 1 ] of functions with discontinuities of the first kind. The results of the first three chapters are used in Chapter 4 to derive a variety of limit theorems for dependent sequences of random variables. " The book develops and expands on Donsker's 1951 and 1952 papers on the invariance principle and empirical distributions. The basic random variables remain real-valued although, of course, measures on C[0, l ] and D[0, l ] are vitally used. Within this framework, there are various possibilities for a different and apparently better treatment of the material. More of the general theory of weak convergence of probabilities on separable metric spaces would be useful. Metrizability of the convergence is not brought up until late in the Appendix. The close relation of the Prokhorov metric and a metric for convergence in probability is (hence) not mentioned (see V. Strassen, Ann. Math. Statist. 36 (1965), 423-439; the reviewer, ibid. 39 (1968), 1563-1572). This relation would illuminate and organize such results as Theorems 4.1, 4.2 and 4.4 which give isolated, ad hoc connections between weak convergence of measures and nearness in probability. In the middle of p. 16, it should be noted that C*(S) consists of signed measures which need only be finitely additive if 5 is not compact. On p. 239, where the author twice speaks of separable subsets having nonmeasurable cardinal, he means "discrete" rather than "separable." Theorem 1.4 is Ulam's theorem that a Borel probability on a complete separable metric space is tight. Theorem 1 of Appendix 3 weakens completeness to topological completeness. After mentioning that probabilities on the rationals are tight, the author says it is an

Convergence of probability measures

This paper shows how to use realised kernels to carry out efficient feasible inference on the expost variation of underlying equity prices in the presence of simple models of market frictions. The issue is subtle with only estimators which have symmetric weights delivering consistent estimators with mixed Gaussian limit theorems. The weights can be chosen to achieve the best possible rate of convergence and to have an asymptotic variance which is close to that of the maximum likelihood estimator in the parametric version of this problem. Realised kernels can also be selected to (i) be analysed using endogenously spaced data such as that in databases on transactions, (ii) allow for market frictions which are endogenous, (iii) allow for temporally dependent noise. The finite sample performance of our estimators is studied using simulation, while empirical work illustrates their use in practice.

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Designing realised kernels to measure the ex-post variation of equity prices in the presence of noise ∗

(1987). Applied Probability and Queues. Journal of the Operational Research Society: Vol. 38, No. 11, pp. 1095-1096.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fjors.1987.184.pdf

Applied Probability and Queues

We introduce a new stochastic model for the variations of asset prices at the tick-by-tick level in dimension 1 (for a single asset) and 2 (for a pair of assets). The construction is based on marked point pro- cesses and relies on linear self and mutually exciting stochastic inten- sities as introduced by Hawkes. We associate a counting process with the positive and negative jumps of an asset price. By coupling suitably the stochastic intensities of upward and downward changes of prices for several assets simultaneously, we can reproduce microstructure noise (i.e. strong microscopic mean reversion at the level of seconds to a few minutes) and the Epps effect (i.e. the decorrelation of the increments in microscopic scales) while preserving a standard Brownian diffusion behaviour on large scales. More effectively, we obtain analytical closed-form formulae for the mean signature plot and the correlation of two price increments that enable to track across scales the effect of the mean-reversion up to the diffusive limit of the model. We show that the theoretical results are consistent with empirical fits on futures Euro-Bund and Euro-Bobl in several situations.

/pdf/modelling-microstructure-noise-with-mutually-exciting-point-1dmy9qmkli.pdf

Modelling microstructure noise with mutually exciting point processes

http://www.cmap.polytechnique.fr/~bacry/ftp/papers/BDHM2.pdf

Some limit theorems for Hawkes processes and application to financial statistics

Let X be a one-dimensional diffusion process. For each n ≥1 we have a round-off level α n >0 and we consider the rounded-off value X t ( α) =α[X t/α] . We are interested in the asymptotic behaviour of the processes U (n,φ) t=1 n ∑ 1 ≤i≤[nt]φ(X ( i-1)/n ( α),n (X i /n ( α)-X ( i-1)/n ( α))) as n goes to + ∞ : under suitable assumptions on φ , and when the sequence α n goes to a limit β ∈[0,∞) , we prove the convergence of U (n,φ) to a limiting process in probability (for the local uniform topology), and an associated central limit theorem. This is motivated mainly by statistical problems in which one wishes to estimate a parameter occurring in the diffusion coefficient, when the diffusion process is observed at times i /n and is subject to rounding off at some level α n which is 'small' but not 'very small'.

/pdf/a-central-limit-theorem-for-normalized-functions-of-the-5drlsoxu92.pdf

A central limit theorem for normalized functions of the increments of a diffusion process, in the presence of round-off errors

We generalise the construction of multivariate Hawkes processes to a possibly infinite network of counting processes on a directed graph G. The process is constructed as the solution to a system of Poisson driven stochastic differential equations, for which we prove pathwise existence and uniqueness under some reasonable conditions. We next investigate how to approximate a standard N -dimensional Hawkes process by a simple inhomogeneous Poisson process in the mean-field framework where each pair of individuals interact in the same way, in the limit N → ∞. In the so-called linear case for the interaction, we further investigate the large time behaviour of the process. We study in particular the stability of the central limit theorem when exchanging the limits N, T → ∞ and exhibit different possible behaviours. We finally consider the case G = Z d with nearest neighbour interactions. In the linear case, we prove some (large time) laws of large numbers and exhibit different behaviours, reminiscent of the infinite setting. Finally we study the propagation of a single impulsion started at a given point of Z d at time 0. We compute the probability of extinction of such an impulsion and, in some particular cases, we can accurately describe how it propagates to the whole space. Mathematics Subject Classification (2010): 60F05, 60G55, 60G57.

/pdf/hawkes-processes-on-large-networks-48jwagbvy0.pdf

Hawkes processes on large networks

We prove a law of large numbers and a functional central limit theorem for multivariate Hawkes processes observed over a time interval $[0,T]$ in the limit $T \rightarrow \infty$. We further exhibit the asymptotic behaviour of the covariation of the increments of the components of a multivariate Hawkes process, when the observations are imposed by a discrete scheme with mesh $\Delta$ over $[0,T]$ up to some further time shift $\tau$. The behaviour of this functional depends on the relative size of $\Delta$ and $\tau$ with respect to $T$ and enables to give a full account of the second-order structure. As an application, we develop our results in the context of financial statistics. We introduced in a previous work a microscopic stochastic model for the variations of a multivariate financial asset, based on Hawkes processes and that is confined to live on a tick grid. We derive and characterise the exact macroscopic diffusion limit of this model and show in particular its ability to reproduce important empirical stylised fact such as the Epps effect and the lead-lag effect. Moreover, our approach enable to track these effects across scales in rigorous mathematical terms.

Sylvain Delattre

Papers

Modelling microstructure noise with mutually exciting point processes

Some limit theorems for Hawkes processes and application to financial statistics

A central limit theorem for normalized functions of the increments of a diffusion process, in the presence of round-off errors

Hawkes processes on large networks

Scaling limits for Hawkes processes and application to financial statistics