Partial frontiers are not quantiles




Dai Sheng, Kuosmanen Timo, Zhou Xun

PublisherarXiv

2022

Statistics > Methodology

2205.11885

https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.11885

https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/175356271



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.


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