Solved – How to calculate the derivative of the multivariate normal CDF with respect to a correlation coefficient

normal distribution

How does one calculate the derivative of a multivariate normal CDF with respect to a given correlation coefficient?

I have started with the bivariate case but couldn't work it out.

Best Answer

I have found the answer to this.

There is a result,

$\frac{\partial}{\partial\rho_{ij}}f(x;0,\Sigma)=\frac{\partial^2}{\partial x_i\partial x_j}f(x;0,\Sigma)$ ("A reduction formula for normal multivariate integrals", Plackett 1954).

So using this result by exchanging the integral and derivative, we just need to be able to differentiate a normal CDF with respect to two of the variables. We can do this by first applying the fundamental theorem of calculus, then conditioning on the two variables,

$\frac{\partial}{\partial\rho_{ij}}F(x;0,\Sigma)=f(x_i,x_j;0,\Sigma_{ij})F(x-\{x_i,x_j\}\ |\ x_i,x_j)$