Estimation of extreme risk regions under multivariate regular variation

Abstract

When considering d possibly dependent random variables, one is often interested in extreme risk regions, with very small probability p. We consider risk regions of the form {z ε ℝd : f (z) ≤ β}, where f is the joint density and β a small number. Estimation of such an extreme risk region is difficult since it contains hardly any or no data. Using extreme value theory, we construct a natural estimator of an extreme risk region and prove a refined form of consistency, given a random sample of multivariate regularly varying random vectors. In a detailed simulation and comparison study, the good performance of the procedure is demonstrated. We also apply our estimator to financial data. © Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2011.