Just throwing this out there: there's no probability distribution in the equation you gave, so there's no context for an MLE: what is the likelihood for m?
Knowing a little bit about the NS model, it seems like it makes more sense to use nls() to fit all four parameters to the data at once. Something like this: nls(y ~ a + b*(1-exp(-m/tau))/(m/tau)+c*((1-exp(-m/tau))/(m/tau)-exp(-m/tau)), data = data.frame(y = y, tau = tau), start = list(a = 1, b = 1, c = 1, m = 1)) Note that as presented, this doesn't work, but it's hopefully a good start (I'm not very good with nls). However, the smartest thing to do is to do your homework before jumping into a project: library(YieldCurve) Nelson.Siegel(y, tau, c(48, 60, 84)) Michael On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Heh Ness <imos...@yahoo.com> wrote: > I have a model like this (Nelson and Siegel 1987) > > <img > src="http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/file/n4120161/31f188c684764cd431619dbb59fed5ae.png" > border="0"/> > > where tau and y are the maturities and yields, respectively, given to me in > my data file.. > > y<-c(4.863,5.662,6.41,6.864,7.153,7.352,7.409,7.474,7.503,7.644,7.676,7.701,7.674,7.668,7.665,7.741,7.743,7.742) > tau<-c(1,3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,30,36,48,60,72,84,96,108,120) > > I firstly need to find the MLE of m which maximises the likelihood function > and then I can easily find the b1, b2 and b3 constants using this m value via > least squares estimation.. > > But does anybody know how I can go abouts finding the MLE of m and if you > could help with providing r code for it, I would appreciate that a lot. I > have been pulling my hair out for the past week now trying to do it :) > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.