Trigonometrically approximated maximum likelihood estimation for stable law

Abstract: A trigonometrically approximated maximum likelihood estimation for $\alpha$-stable laws is proposed. The estimator solves the approximated likelihood equation, which is obtained by projecting a true score function on the space spanned by trigonometric functions. The projected score is expressed only by real and imaginary parts of the characteristic function and their derivatives, so that we can explicitly construct the targeting estimating equation. We study the asymptotic properties of the proposed estimator and show consistency and asymptotic normality. Furthermore, as the number of trigonometric functions increases, the estimator converges to the exact maximum likelihood estimator, in the sense that they have the same asymptotic law. Simulation studies show that our estimator outperforms other moment-type estimators, and its standard deviation almost achieves the Cram\'er--Rao lower bound. We apply our method to the estimation problem for $\alpha$-stable Ornstein--Uhlenbeck processes in a high-frequency setting. The obtained result demonstrates the theory of asymptotic mixed normality.