Nonparametric Estimation in Renewal Theory I: The Empirical Renewal Function

Abstract

We introduce a nonparametric estimator for the renewal function and discuss its properties, including consistency, asymptotic normality and asymptotic validity of bootstrap confidence regions. The underlying theme is that stochastic models can be regarded as functionals or nonlinear operators. This view leads to nonparametric estimators in a natural way and statistical properties of the estimators can be related to the local behaviour of the functionals.