Cubic spline
Introduction
We try to approximate a time series $y_t$ by a smooth function $\mu_t$, chosen by minimizing the criterion:
\[\sum_{t=0}^{t<n}\left[y_t-\mu_t\right]^2 + \lambda \sum_{t=0}^{t<n}\left[\Delta^2 \mu_t\right]^2\]We consider the following model:
\[y_t = \mu_t + \epsilon_t\] \[\Delta^2 \mu_t = \eta_t\] \[var(\epsilon_t)= \sigma^2, \quad var(\eta_t)= \sigma^2/\lambda\]