12 Prediction Uncertainty Quantification for AR Model

Prediction Standard Errors

Again like last note we fix θ and attempt to calculate Vi(θ)=Var(yn+i|y1,⋯,yn,θ),i=1,2,⋯
Then the prediction standard error of yn+i can be Vi(θ^) (θ^ comes from conditional MLE). It turns out that it is difficult to directly setup a recursion for Vi(θ), instead we get the recursion by working with conditional covariance matrices of yn+1,⋯,yn+k (given θ and data) for k=1,2,⋯ (review 19 Covariance Matrices)

Denote Γk(θ)=Cov((yn+1⋮yn+k)|θ,y1,⋯,yn). The (i,j) element of Γk(θ) is Cov(yn+i,yn+j|y1,⋯,yn,θ). The diagonal elements are V1(θ),⋯,Vk(θ). Note that Γ1(θ)=Var(yn+1|y1,⋯,yn,θ)=σ2.
We also know Γk(θ)=(Γk−1(θ)γk1(θ)γk1T(θ)Vk(θ)), where γk1(θ)=Cov((yn+1⋮yn+k−1)|θ,y1,⋯,yn)=Cov((yn+1⋮yn+k−1),∑i=1k−1aiyn+i|θ,data), where ai={ϕk−i,k−p≤i≤k−1,0,1≤i<k−p.
Thus if a is the (k−1)×1 vector with entries a1,⋯,ak−1, γk1(θ)=Cov((yn+1⋮yn+k−1),aT(yn+1⋮yn+k−1)|θ,data)=Γk−1(θ)a.
Further Vk(θ)=Var(∑i=1k−1aiyn+i|θ,data)+σ2=aTΓk−1(θ)a+σ2. And therefore Γk(θ)=(Γk−1(θ)Γk−1(θ)aaTΓk−1(θ)aTΓk−1(θ)a+σ2).

Calculating Vi(θ), i=1,⋯,K

  1. Initialize Γ1(θ)=V1(θ)=σ2
  2. For k=2,⋯,K:
    3. Form ai (see above)
    4. Calculate Γk(θ) using Γk−1(θ) and a by formula above.
  3. Vi(θ) is then given by ΓK(θ).

In practice, we run this recursion with θ^MLE.