Statistical Inference for Networks of High-Dimensional Point Processes
Abstract
Fueled in part by recent applications in neuroscience, the multivariate Hawkes process has become a popular tool for modeling the network of interactions among high-dimensional point process data. While evaluating the uncertainty of the network estimates is critical in scientific applications, existing methodological and theoretical work has primarily addressed estimation. To bridge this gap, this paper develops a new statistical inference procedure for high-dimensional Hawkes processes. The key ingredient for this inference procedure is a new concentration inequality on the first- and second-order statistics for integrated stochastic processes, which summarize the entire history of the process. Combining recent results on martingale central limit theory with the new concentration inequality, we then characterize the convergence rate of the test statistics. We illustrate finite sample validity of our inferential tools via extensive simulations and demonstrate their utility by applying them to a neuron spike train data set.
Type
Publication
Journal of the American Statistical Association, 120(550), 1014–1024

Authors
Professor of Data Sciences and Operations
Mladen Kolar is a Professor of Data Sciences and Operations at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business and a Visiting Professor of Statistics and Data Science at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence. Before joining USC, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His research is focused on high-dimensional statistical methods, graphical models, varying-coefficient models and data mining, driven by the need to uncover interesting and scientifically meaningful structures from observational data. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.