The bivariate K-finite normal mixture ‘blanket’ copula

Abstract

There exist many bivariate parametric copulas to model bivariate data with different dependence features. We propose a new bivariate parametric copula family that cannot only handle various dependence patterns that appear in the existing parametric bivariate copula families, but also provides a more enriched dependence structure. The proposed copula construction exploits finite mixtures of bivariate normal distributions. The mixing operation, the distinct correlation and mean parameters at each mixture component introduce quite a flexible dependence. The new parametric copula is theoretically investigated, compared with a set of classical bivariate parametric copulas and illustrated on two empirical examples from astrophysics and agriculture where some of the variables have peculiar and asymmetric dependence, respectively.