A novel hybrid robust tapering approach for nonlinear regression in the presence of autocorrelation and outliers

Abstract

Nonlinear models are commonly used for analyzing real-life data such as in medicine, engineering, and economics. To make efficient inferences about model parameter estimations and statistical results in nonlinear regression, assumptions related to error term are needed to be satisfied. Ordinary least squares and some modified least squares methods fail to give efficient parameter estimates when there are the problems of autocorrelation and outlier together in nonlinear regression. In this study, a novel hybrid robust tapering approach called as robust modified two-stage least squares is proposed to overcome the problems for obtaining more efficient parameter estimates in nonlinear regression. Two numerical examples and a comprehensive Monte–Carlo simulation study are given in order to examine the performance of robust modified two-stage least squares.

Keywords:

• Autocorrelation
• nonlinear regression
• outlier
• robust modified two-stage least squares
• tapering

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the editor and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments.