This comprehensive text gives an interesting and useful blend of the mathematical, probabilistic and statistical tools used in heavy-tail analysis. It is uniquely devoted to heavy-tails and emphasizes both probability modeling and statistical methods for fitting models. Prerequisites for the reader include a prior course in stochastic processes and probability, some statistical background, some familiarity with time series analysis, and ability to use a statistics package. This work will serve second-year graduate students and researchers in the areas of applied mathematics, statistics, operations research, electrical engineering, and economics.

This comprehensive text gives an interesting and useful blend of the mathematical, probabilistic and statistical tools used in heavy-tail analysis. It is uniquely devoted to heavy-tails and emphasizes both probability modeling and statistical methods for fitting models. Prerequisites for the reader include a prior course in stochastic processes and probability, some statistical background, some familiarity with time series analysis, and ability to use a statistics package. This work will serve second-year graduate students and researchers in the areas of applied mathematics, statistics, operations research, electrical engineering, and economics.

Heavy tails –extreme events or values more common than expected –emerge everywhere: the economy, natural events, and social and information networks are just a few examples. Yet after decades of progress, they are still treated as mysterious, surprising, and even controversial, primarily because the necessary mathematical models and statistical methods are not widely known. This book, for the first time, provides a rigorous introduction to heavy-tailed distributions accessible to anyone who knows elementary probability. It tackles and tames the zoo of terminology for models and properties, demystifying topics such as the generalized central limit theorem and regular variation. It tracks the natural emergence of heavy-tailed distributions from a wide variety of general processes, building intuition. And it reveals the controversy surrounding heavy tails to be the result of flawed statistics, then equips readers to identify and estimate with confidence. Over 100 exercises complete this engaging package.

This comprehensive text gives an interesting and useful blend of the mathematical, probabilistic and statistical tools used in heavy-tail analysis. It is uniquely devoted to heavy-tails and emphasizes both probability modeling and statistical methods for fitting models. Prerequisites for the reader include a prior course in stochastic processes and probability, some statistical background, some familiarity with time series analysis, and ability to use a statistics package. This work will serve second-year graduate students and researchers in the areas of applied mathematics, statistics, operations research, electrical engineering, and economics.

Heavy-tailed distributions are typical for phenomena in complex multi-component systems such as biometry, economics, ecological systems, sociology, web access statistics, internet traffic, biblio-metrics, finance and business. The analysis of such distributions requires special methods of estimation due to their specific features. These are not only the slow decay to zero of the tail, but also the violation of Cramer’s condition, possible non-existence of some moments, and sparse observations in the tail of the distribution. The book focuses on the methods of statistical analysis of heavy-tailed independent identically distributed random variables by empirical samples of moderate sizes. It provides a detailed survey of classical results and recent developments in the theory of nonparametric estimation of the probability density function, the tail index, the hazard rate and the renewal function. Both asymptotical results, for example convergence rates of the estimates, and results for the samples of moderate sizes supported by Monte-Carlo investigation, are considered. The text is illustrated by the application of the considered methodologies to real data of web traffic measurements.

The study of heavy-tailed distributions allows researchers to represent phenomena that occasionally exhibit very large deviations from the mean. The dynamics underlying these phenomena is an interesting theoretical subject, but the study of their statistical properties is in itself a very useful endeavor from the point of view of managing assets and controlling risk. In this book, the authors are primarily concerned with the statistical properties of heavy-tailed distributions and with the processes that exhibit jumps. A detailed overview with a Matlab implementation of heavy-tailed models applied in asset management and risk managements is presented. The book is not intended as a theoretical treatise on probability or statistics, but as a tool to understand the main concepts regarding heavy-tailed random variables and processes as applied to real-world applications in finance. Accordingly, the authors review approaches and methodologies whose realization will be useful for developing new methods for forecasting of financial variables where extreme events are not treated as anomalies, but as intrinsic parts of the economic process.

The book investigates the misapplication of conventional statistical techniques to fat tailed distributions and looks for remedies, when possible. Switching from thin tailed to fat tailed distributions requires more than "changing the color of the dress." Traditional asymptotics deal mainly with either n=1 or n=∞, and the real world is in between, under the "laws of the medium numbers"-which vary widely across specific distributions. Both the law of large numbers and the generalized central limit mechanisms operate in highly idiosyncratic ways outside the standard Gaussian or Levy-Stable basins of convergence. A few examples: - The sample mean is rarely in line with the population mean, with effect on "naïve empiricism," but can be sometimes be estimated via parametric methods. - The "empirical distribution" is rarely empirical. - Parameter uncertainty has compounding effects on statistical metrics. - Dimension reduction (principal components) fails. - Inequality estimators (Gini or quantile contributions) are not additive and produce wrong results. - Many "biases" found in psychology become entirely rational under more sophisticated probability distributions. - Most of the failures of financial economics, econometrics, and behavioral economics can be attributed to using the wrong distributions. This book, the first volume of the Technical Incerto, weaves a narrative around published journal articles.