In this dissertation, I investigate three related topics on asset pricing: the consumption-based asset pricing under long-run risks and fat tails, the pricing of VIX (CBOE Volatility Index) options and the market price of risk embedded in stock returns and stock options. These three topics are fully explored in Chapter II through IV. Chapter V summarizes the main conclusions. In Chapter II, I explore the effects of fat tails on the equilibrium implications of the long run risks model of asset pricing by introducing innovations with dampened power law to consumption and dividends growth processes. I estimate the structural parameters of the proposed model by maximum likelihood. I find that the stochastic volatility model with fat tails can, without resorting to high risk aversion, generate implied risk premium, expected risk free rate and their volatilities comparable to the magnitudes observed in data. In Chapter III, I examine the pricing performance of VIX option models. The contention that simpler-is-better is supported by the empirical evidence using actual VIX option market data. I find that no model has small pricing errors over the entire range of strike prices and times to expiration. In general, Whaley’s Black-like option model produces the best overall results, supporting the simpler-is-better contention. However, the Whaley model does under/overprice out-of-the-money call/put VIX options, which is contrary to the behavior of stock index option pricing models. In Chapter IV, I explore risk pricing through a model of time-changed Lévy processes based on the joint evidence from individual stock options and underlying stocks. I specify a pricing kernel that prices idiosyncratic and systematic risks. This approach to examining risk premia on stocks deviates from existing studies. The empirical results show that the market pays positive premia for idiosyncratic and market jump-diffusion risk, and idiosyncratic volatility risk. However, there is no consensus on the premium for market volatility risk. It can be positive or negative. The positive premium on idiosyncratic risk runs contrary to the implications of traditional capital asset pricing theory.

Nous nous intéressons à estimer la moyenne d'une variable aléatoire de loi à queue lourde. Nous adoptons une approche plus robuste que la moyenne empirique classique communément utilisée. L'objectif est de développer des inégalités de concentration de type sous-gaussien sur l'erreur d'estimation. En d'autres termes, nous cherchons à garantir une forte concentration sous une hypothèse plus faible que la bornitude : une variance finie. Deux estimateurs de la moyenne pour une loi à support réel sont invoqués et leurs résultats de concentration sont rappelés. Plusieurs adaptations en dimension supérieure sont envisagées. L'utilisation appropriée de ces estimateurs nous permet d'introduire une nouvelle technique de minimisation du risque empirique pour des variables aléatoires à queue lourde. Quelques applications de cette technique sont développées. Nous appuyons ces résultats sur des simulations sur des jeux de données simulées. Dans un troisième temps, nous étudions un problème d'estimation multivarié dans le cadre des U-statistiques où les estimateurs précédents offrent, là aussi, une généralisation naturelle d'estimateurs présents dans la littérature. / In this thesis, we are interested in estimating the mean of heavy-tailed random variables. We focus on a robust estimation of the mean approach as an alternative to the classical empirical mean estimation. The goal is to develop sub-Gaussian concentration inequalities for the estimating error. In other words, we seek strong concentration results usually obtained for bounded random variables, in the context where the bounded condition is replaced by a finite variance condition. Two existing estimators of the mean of a real-valued random variable are invoked and their concentration results are recalled. Several new higher dimension adaptations are discussed. Using those estimators, we introduce a new version of empirical risk minimization for heavy-tailed random variables. Some applications are developed. These results are illustrated by simulations on artificial data samples. Lastly, we study the multivariate case in the U-statistics context. A natural generalization of existing estimators is offered, once again, by previous estimators.

Since the financial crisis which started in 2007, the risk awareness in the financial sector is greater than ever. Financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies are heavily regulated in order to create a harmonic and resilient global economic environment. Sufficiently large capital buffers may protect institutions from bankruptcy due to some adverse financial events leading to an undesirable outcome for the company. In many regulatory frameworks, the institutions are obliged to estimate high quantiles of their loss distributions. This is relatively unproblematic when large samples of relevant historical data are available. Serious statistical problems appear when only small samples of relevant data are available. One possible solution would be to pool two or more samples that appear to have the same distribution, in order to create a larger sample. This thesis identifies the advantages and risks of pooling of small samples. For some mixtures of normally distributed samples, with what is considered to be the same variances, the pooled data may indicate heavy tails. Since a finite mixture of normally distributed samples has light tails, this is an example of spurious heavy tails. Even though two samples may appear to have the same distribution function it is not necessarily better to pool the samples in order to obtain a larger sample size with the aim of more accurate quantile estimation. For two normally distributed samples of sizes m and n and standard deviations s and v, we find that when v=s is approximately 2, n+m is less than 100 and m=(m+n) is approximately 0.75, then there is a considerable risk of believing that the two samples have equal variance and that the pooled sample has heavy tails. / Efter den finansiella krisen som hade sin start 2007 har riskmedvetenheten inom den finansiella sektorn ökat. Finansiella institutioner så som banker och försäkringsbolag är noga reglerade och kontrollerade för att skapa en stark och stabil världsekonomi. Genom att banker och försäkringsbolag enligt regelverken måste ha kapitalbuffertar som ska skydda mot konkurser vid oväntade och oönskade händelser skapas en mer harmonisk finansiell marknad. Dessa regelverk som institutionerna måste följa innebär ofta att de ansvariga måste skatta höga kvantiler av institutionens förväntade förlustfunktion. Att skapa en pålitligt modell och sedan skatta höga kvantiler är lätt när det finns mycket relevant data tillgänglig. När det inte finns tillr äckligt med historisk data uppkommer statistiska problem. En lösning på problemet är att poola två eller _era grupper av data som ser ut att komma från samma fördelningsfunktion för att på så sätt skapa en större grupp med historisk data tillgänglig. Detta arbetet går igenom fördelar och risker med att poola data när det inte finns tillräckligt med relevant historisk data för att skapa en pålitlig modell. En viss mix av normalfördelade datagrupper som ser ut att ha samma varians kan uppfattas att komma från tungsvansade fördelningar. Eftersom normalfördelningen inte är en tungsvansad fördelning kan denna missuppfattning skapa problem, detta är ett exempel på falska tunga svansar. Även fast två datagrupper ser ut att komma från samma fördelningsfunktion så är det inte nödvändigtvis bättre att poola dessa grupper för att skapa ett större urval. För två normalfördelade datagrupper med storlekarna m och n och standardavvikelserna s och v, är det farligaste scenariot när v=s är ungefär 2, n+m är mindre än 100 och m=(m+n)är ungefär 0.75. När detta inträffar finns det en signifikant risk att de två datagrupperna ser ut att komma från samma fördelningsfunktion och att den poolade datan innehar tungsvansade egenskaper.

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In this dissertation, I extend the analysis of human dynamics to human movements in online activities. My work starts with a discussion of the human information foraging process based on three large collections of empirical search click-through logs collected in different time periods. With the analogy of viewing the click-through on search engine result pages as a random walk, a variety of quantities like the distributions of step length and waiting time as well as mean-squared displacements, correlations and entropies are discussed. Notable differences between the different logs reveal an increased efficiency of the search engines, which is found to be related to the vanishing of the heavy-tailed characteristics of step lengths in newer logs as well as the switch from superdiffusion to normal diffusion in the diffusive processes of the random walks. In the language of foraging, the newer logs indicate that online searches overwhelmingly yield local searches, whereas for the older logs the foraging processes are a combination of local searches and relocation phases that are power-law distributed. The investigation highlights the presence of intermittent search processes in online searches, where phases of local explorations are separated by power-law distributed relocation jumps. In the second part of this dissertation I focus on an in-depth analysis of online gambling behaviors. For this analysis the collected empirical gambling logs reveal the wide existence of heavy-tailed statistics in various quantities in different online gambling games. For example, when players are allowed to choose arbitrary bet values, the bet values present log-normal distributions, meanwhile if they are restricted to use items as wagers, the distribution becomes truncated power laws. Under the analogy of viewing the net change of income of each player as a random walk, the mean-squared displacement and first-passage time distribution of these net income random walks both exhibit anomalous diffusion. In particular, in an online lottery game the mean-squared displacement presents a crossover from a superdiffusive to a normal diffusive regime, which is reproduced using simulations and explained analytically. This investigation also reveals the scaling characteristics and probability reweighting in risk attitude of online gamblers, which may help to interpret behaviors in economic systems. This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation through grants DMR-1205309 and DMR-1606814. / Ph. D. / Humans are complex, meanwhile understanding the complex human behaviors is of crucial importance in solving many social problems. In recent years, socio physicists have made substantial progress in human dynamics research. In this dissertation, I extend this type of analysis to human movements in online activities. My work starts with a discussion of the human information foraging process. This investigation is based on empirical search logs and an analogy of viewing the click-through on search engine result pages as a random walk. With an increased efficiency of the search engines, the heavy-tailed characteristics of step lengths disappear, and the diffusive processes of the random walkers switch from superdiffusion to normal diffusion. In the language of foraging, the newer logs indicate that online searches overwhelmingly yield local searches, whereas for the older logs the foraging processes are a combination of local searches and relocation phases that are power-law distributed. The investigation highlights the presence of intermittent search processes in online searches, where phases of local explorations are separated by power-law distributed relocation jumps. In the second part of this dissertation I focus on an in-depth analysis of online gambling behaviors, where the collected empirical gambling logs reveal the wide existence of heavy-tailed statistics in various quantities. Using an analogy of viewing the net change of income of each player as a random walk, the mean-squared displacement and first-passage time distribution of these net income random walks exhibit anomalous diffusion. This investigation also reveals the scaling characteristics and probability reweighting in risk attitude of online gamblers, which may help to interpret behaviors in economic systems. This work was supported by the US National Science Foundation through grants DMR-1205309 and DMR-1606814.

Social media and user engagement are bigger than ever. Users are presented with various types of content curated by algorithms, which partially dictate what is shown to them. These algorithms lack transparency and clarity for the user. In this thesis we have developed a toolset to tail fit data of user engagement to show what behaviours this data actually shows. We want to see the differences between categories of content and show how user engagement in social media behaves. From our study we have found that there are differences between how users engage with different leanings within political content andcontents of differing credibility. We have also found that more narrow metrics in choosingdata can present different results and behaviours. From this we can determine that choice of data is crucial when working with tails. Future work is imperative to keep creating understanding for these social media platforms and how users engage with different types of content. To keep up with the constantly changing environment of social media new tools and methods will needed to create understanding for our most used platforms for public interaction.

Modelos GARCH tendo a normal e a t-Student como distribuições condicionais são amplamente utilizados para modelagem da volatilidade de dados financeiros. No entanto, tais distribuições podem não ser apropriadas para algumas séries com caudas pesadas e comportamento leptocúrtico. As chamadas distribuições estáveis podem ser mais adequadas para sua modelagem, como já explorado na literatura. Por outro lado, os modelos GAS (Generalized Autoregressive Score), com desenvolvimento recente, tratam-se de modelos dinâmicos que possuem em sua estrutura a função score (derivada do logaritmo da verossimilhança). Tal abordagem oferece uma direção natural para a evolução dos parâmetros da distribuição dos dados. Neste trabalho, é proposto um novo modelo GAS em conjunção com distribuições estáveis simétricas para a modelagem da volatilidade - de fato, é uma generalização do GARCH, pois, para uma particular escolha de distribuição estável e de estrutura do modelo, tem-se o clássico modelo GARCH gaussiano. Como em geral a função densidade das distribuições estáveis não possui forma analítica fechada, é apresentado seu procedimento de cálculo, bem como de suas derivadas, para o completo desenvolvimento do método de estimação dos parâmetros. Também são analisadas as condições de estacionariedade e a estrutura de dependência do modelo. Estudos de simulação são conduzidos, bem como uma aplicação a dados reais, para comparação entre modelos usuais, que utilizam distribuições normal e t-Student, e o modelo proposto, demonstrando a eficácia deste. / GARCH models with normal and t-Student conditional distributions are widely used for volatility modeling in financial data. However, such distributions may not be suitable for some heavy-tailed and leptokurtic series. The stable distributions may be more adequate to fit such characteristics, as already exploited in the literature. On the other hand, the recently developed GAS (Generalized Autoregressive Score) models are dynamic models in which the updating mechanism of the time-varying parameters is based on the score function (first derivative of the log-likelihood function). This provides the natural direction for updating the parameters, based on the complete density. We propose a new GAS model with symmetric stable distribution for volatility modeling. The model can be interpreted as a generalization of the GARCH models, since the classic gaussian GARCH model is derived from it by using particular choices of the stable distribution and the model structure. There are no closed analytical expressions for general stable densities in most cases, hence its numeric computation and derivatives are detailed for the sake of complete development of the estimation process. The stationarity conditions and the dependence structure of the model are analysed. Simulation studies, as well as an application to real data, are presented for comparisons between the usual models and the proposed model, illustrating the effectiveness of the latter.

Modelos GARCH tendo a normal e a t-Student como distribuições condicionais são amplamente utilizados para modelagem da volatilidade de dados financeiros. No entanto, tais distribuições podem não ser apropriadas para algumas séries com caudas pesadas e comportamento leptocúrtico. As chamadas distribuições estáveis podem ser mais adequadas para sua modelagem, como já explorado na literatura. Por outro lado, os modelos GAS (Generalized Autoregressive Score), com desenvolvimento recente, tratam-se de modelos dinâmicos que possuem em sua estrutura a função score (derivada do logaritmo da verossimilhança). Tal abordagem oferece uma direção natural para a evolução dos parâmetros da distribuição dos dados. Neste trabalho, é proposto um novo modelo GAS em conjunção com distribuições estáveis simétricas para a modelagem da volatilidade - de fato, é uma generalização do GARCH, pois, para uma particular escolha de distribuição estável e de estrutura do modelo, tem-se o clássico modelo GARCH gaussiano. Como em geral a função densidade das distribuições estáveis não possui forma analítica fechada, é apresentado seu procedimento de cálculo, bem como de suas derivadas, para o completo desenvolvimento do método de estimação dos parâmetros. Também são analisadas as condições de estacionariedade e a estrutura de dependência do modelo. Estudos de simulação são conduzidos, bem como uma aplicação a dados reais, para comparação entre modelos usuais, que utilizam distribuições normal e t-Student, e o modelo proposto, demonstrando a eficácia deste. / GARCH models with normal and t-Student conditional distributions are widely used for volatility modeling in financial data. However, such distributions may not be suitable for some heavy-tailed and leptokurtic series. The stable distributions may be more adequate to fit such characteristics, as already exploited in the literature. On the other hand, the recently developed GAS (Generalized Autoregressive Score) models are dynamic models in which the updating mechanism of the time-varying parameters is based on the score function (first derivative of the log-likelihood function). This provides the natural direction for updating the parameters, based on the complete density. We propose a new GAS model with symmetric stable distribution for volatility modeling. The model can be interpreted as a generalization of the GARCH models, since the classic gaussian GARCH model is derived from it by using particular choices of the stable distribution and the model structure. There are no closed analytical expressions for general stable densities in most cases, hence its numeric computation and derivatives are detailed for the sake of complete development of the estimation process. The stationarity conditions and the dependence structure of the model are analysed. Simulation studies, as well as an application to real data, are presented for comparisons between the usual models and the proposed model, illustrating the effectiveness of the latter.