Under a second order regular variation condition, rates of convergence of the distribution of bivariate extreme order statistics to its limit distribution are given both in the total variation metric and in the uniform metric.

A general form for regular variation in IR2 is introduced and applied to domains of attraction of stable distribution in IR2 where the components have different indices. The situation in IRd with d > 2 is more complicated but not essentially different. For simplicity this paper is limited to IR2.

Tail index estimation depends for its accuracy on a precise choice of the sample fraction, i.e., the number of extreme order statistics on which the estimation is based. A complete solution to the sample fraction selection is given by means of a two-step subsample bootstrap method. This method...