Body tail adaptive kernel density estimation for nonnegative heavy-tailed data

Abstract In this paper, we consider the procedure for deriving variable bandwidth in univariate kernel density estimation for nonnegative heavy-tailed (HT) data. These procedures consider the Birnbaum–Saunders power-exponential (BS-PE) kernel estimator and the bayesian approach that treats the adaptive bandwidths. We adapt an algorithm that subdivides the HT data set into two regions, high density region (HDR) and low-density region (LDR), and we assign a bandwidth parameter for each region. They are derived by using a Monte Carlo Markov chain (MCMC) sampling algorithm. A series of simulation studies and real data are realized for evaluating the performance of a procedure proposed.