D4 Published development or research report or study

Partial frontiers are not quantiles




AuthorsDai Sheng, Kuosmanen Timo, Zhou Xun

PublisherarXiv

Publication year2022

Series titleStatistics > Methodology

Number in series2205.11885

Web address https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.11885

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/175356271


Abstract

Quantile regression and partial frontier are two distinct approaches to nonparametric quantile frontier estimation. In this article, we demonstrate that partial frontiers are not quantiles. Both convex and nonconvex technologies are considered. To this end, we propose convexified order-α as an alternative to convex quantile regression (CQR) and convex expectile regression (CER), and two new nonconvex estimators: isotonic CQR and isotonic CER as alternatives to order-α. A Monte Carlo study shows that the partial frontier estimators perform relatively poorly and even can violate the quantile property, particularly at low quantiles. In addition, the simulation evidence shows that the indirect expectile approach to estimating quantiles generally outperforms the direct quantile estimations. We further find that the convex estimators outperform their nonconvex counterparts owing to their global shape constraints. An illustration of those estimators is provided using a real-world dataset of U.S. electric power plants.


Downloadable publication

This is an electronic reprint of the original article.
This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail. Please cite the original version.





Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 15:11