Range-based Parameter Estimation in Diffusion Models

We study the behavior of the maximum, the minimum and the terminal value of time–homogeneous one–dimensional diffusions on finite time intervals. To begin with, we prove an existence result for the joint density by means of Malliavin calculus. Moreover, we derive expansions for the joint moments of the triplet (H,L,X) at time Delta w.r.t. Delta. Here, X stands for the underlying diffusion whereas H and L denote its running maximum and its running minimum, respectively. In a first approach that entirely relies on elementary estimates, such as Doob’s inequality and Cauchy–Schwarz’ inequality, we derive an expansion w.r.t. the square root of the time parameter Delta including powers of 2. A more sophisticated ansatz uses partial differential equation techniques to determine an expansion of the one–barrier hitting time probability for pinned diffusions. For an expansion of the transition density of diffusions is known, one obtains an overall expansion of the joint probability of (H,X) w.r.t. Delta. The developed distributional properties enable us to establish a theory for martingale estimating functions constructed from range–based data in a parameterized diffusion model. A small–Delta–optimality approach, that uses the approximated moments, yields a simplification of the relatively complicated estimating procedure and we obtain asymptotic optimality results when the sampling frequency Delta tends to 0. When it comes to estimating the drift coefficient the range–based method is not superior to the method relying on equidistant observations of the underlying diffusion alone. However, there is an enormous gain in efficiency at the estimation for the diffusion coefficient. Incorporating the maximum and the minimum into the analysis significantly lowers the asymptotic variance of the estimators for the parameter in this scenario.