Heteroscedasticity Detection and Estimation with Quantile Difference Method

Abstract

When dealing with regression analysis, heteroscedasticity is a problem that the authors have to face with. Especially if little information can be got in advance, detection of heteroscedasticity as well as estimation of statistical models could be even more difficult. To this end, this paper proposes a quantile difference method (QDM) that can effectively estimate the heteroscedastic function. This method, being completely free from the estimation of mean regression function, is simple, robust and easy to implement. Moreover, the QDM method enables the detection of heteroscedasticity without any restrictions on error terms, consequently being widely applied. What is worth mentioning is that based on the proposed approach estimators of both mean regression function and heteroscedastic function can be obtained. In the end, the authors conduct some simulations to examine the performance of the proposed methods and use a real data to make an illustration.