| Summary: | Quantile regression is an important tool in data analysis. Linear regression, or more generally, parametric quantile regression imposes often too restrictive assumptions. Nonparametric regression avoids making distributional assumptions, but might have the disadvantage of not exploiting distributional modelling elements that might be brought in. A semiparametric approach towards estimating conditional quantile curves is proposed. It is based on a recently studied large family of asymmetric densities of which the location parameter is a quantile (and not a mean). Passing to conditional densities and exploiting local likelihood techniques in a multiparameter functional setting then leads to a semiparametric estimation procedure. For the local maximum likelihood estimators the asymptotic distributional properties are established, and it is discussed how to assess finite sample bias and variance. Due to the appealing semiparametric framework, one can discuss in detail the bandwidth selection issue, and provide several practical bandwidth selectors. The practical use of the semiparametric method is illustrated in the analysis of maximum winds speeds of hurricanes in the North Atlantic region, and of bone density data. A simulation study includes a comparison with nonparametric local linear quantile regression as well as an investigation of robustness against miss-specifying the parametric model part. Asymptotic distribution; Bandwidth selection; Local likelihood; Local polynomial fitting;
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