4
$\begingroup$

I have been trying to understand why modeling dependency using Copulas is widely used - specifically, what are the advantages of using Copulas?

Here is my understanding:

  1. The marginals of the data may not be normally distributed, hence, we cannot write it in the form of a multi-variate normal distribution. Therefore, it may be difficult to write its density in a closed form. However, if we map our data using a percentile-to-percentile basis into a multivariate Gaussian distribution, we can represent this new Gaussian distribution in a closed-form. But, still what is the advantage of representing so?

Can you please give a complete example of why modeling becomes easier using copulas?

$\endgroup$

1 Answer 1

6
$\begingroup$

Before I write the answer to my question, I would like to post some excellent answers already given for a similar question

First timers, usually, do not appreciate the modeling flexibility associated with a Gaussian copula vis-a-vis a Gaussian distribution. What I mean is, say, we have 10000 data points and we want to fit a distribution to these available 10k datapoints. One of the reasons why multi-variate Gaussian distributions are widely used is because of its simple closed form expression. We can easily use Maximum likelihood estimation to fit a mutlivariate Gaussian distribution to the available 10k datapoints. However, in the real world, the data is rarely multi-variate Gaussian. In such real world cases, it does not make sense to try and fit a Multivariate Gaussian distribution to the data. Here is where Copulas offer the flexibility.

Some theory on Copulas:

The CDF of a bi-variate Gaussian Copula distribution is given by $C(u,v) = \Phi_{\rho}(\phi^{-1}(u),\phi^{-1}(v))$ where the $U$ and $V$ are uniformly distributed random variables, $\Phi_{\rho}$ - CDF of bivariate Gaussian with a correlation $\rho$ and $\phi$ is the CDF of univariate Gaussian.

It is straightforward to see that any continuous cummulative distribution $U = F(X)$ produces a uniformly distributed random variable $U$. The magic lies in the $\phi^{-1}(u),\phi^{-1}(v)$ parts - Copula formulation preserves the marginal distribution of the $u = F(x)$ and $v=G(y)$

How?

  1. We know $\Phi_{\rho}(p,q)$ is bi-variate Gaussian distribution in $P-Q$ space. Since the joint distribution is Gaussian, the marginal distributions have to be Gaussian. Essentially, the marginal distribution of $Q$ is given by $\phi(q)$.
  2. Now, if we do a non-linear transformation of the $Q$-axis in the $P-Q$ space, the distribution may no longer be Gaussian. Specifically, if we do a non-linear transformation $q = \phi^{-1}(v)$, the marginal CDF along the new transformed axis becomes $\phi(\phi^{-1}(v))$, which essentially is $v$ - a uniform random variable. Since the CDF of any continuous distribution is $v$, why not have that $ v = G(y)$. Essentially, we moved from a $P-Q$ space to a $P-Y$ space using the non-linear transform $q= \phi^{-1}(G(y))$.

Let me demonstrate with an example.

library(mvtnorm)
library(MASS)
library(ggplot2)
Sigma <- matrix(c(1,0,0,1),2,2)
Sigma
sim1 = mvrnorm(n = 10000, c(0,0), Sigma)
ggplot()+ geom_point(aes(sim1[,1],sim1[,2])) + labs(x = "X-Axis",y = "Y-Axis")

A simple bi-variate normal distribution. enter image description here

The same Bi-variate distribution with Y-axis scaled by a factor of 2. Note that the overall distribution is still Gaussian. enter image description here

#Y-axis is dilated - meaning mulitplied by 2
ggplot()+ geom_point(aes(sim1[,1],2*sim1[,2])) + labs(x = "X-Axis",y = "Y-Axis")

Only Y-axis is given a squared transformation. Clearly this is not bi-variate Gaussian. enter image description here

ggplot()+ geom_point(aes(sim1[,1],sim1[,2]^2)) + labs(x = "X-Axis",y = "Y-Axis")
# It is no longer bi-variate normal. 

Both X-axis Y-axis is given a squared transformation

enter image description here

ggplot()+ geom_point(aes(sim1[,1]^2,sim1[,2]^2)) + labs(x = "X-Axis",y = "Y-Axis")
# It is no longer bi-variate normal.

Copulas give the flexibility to capture these additional cases where the marginals are not necessarily normal. Using Copulas we can get a closed form expression for the distributions of all these cases.

For e.g. For the last figure, using Copula theory, we can write the density function \begin{align} c(u,v) &= \frac{f_\rho(\phi^{-1}(u),\phi^{-1}(v))}{f(\phi^{-1}(u)) f(\phi^{-1}(u))} & \text{Where } f_\rho & \text{ is the bivariate Gaussian distribution} \\ &= \frac{f_\rho(\phi^{-1}(F(x)),\phi^{-1}(G(y)))}{f(\phi^{-1}(F(x))) f(\phi^{-1}(G(y)))} & \text{and } f & \text{ is the univariate Gaussian distribution} \end{align}

In this case, $F,G$ are the CDF of Chi-square (kind of Squared normal) distribution.

$\endgroup$

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.