Estimation of parameters in the self-exciting threshold autoregressive processes for nonlinear time series of counts

To better describe the characteristics of time series of counts such as over-dispersion, asymmetry and structural change, this paper considers a class of integer-valued self-exciting threshold autoregressive processes that properly capture flexible asymmetric and nonlinear responses without assuming the distributions for the errors. Empirical likelihood methods are proposed for constructing confidence intervals for the parameters of interest. Maximum empirical likelihood estimators, as well as their asymptotic properties, are obtained for both the cases that the threshold variable is known or not. A method to test the nonlinearity of the data is provided. As an illustration, we conduct a simulation study and empirical analysis of Pittsburgh crime data sets.