Estimating Mixing Densities in Exponential Family Models for Discrete Variables

This paper is concerned with estimating a mixing density g using a random sample from the mixture distribution f(x)=∫f x | θ)g(θ)dθ where f(· | θ) is a known discrete exponen tial family of density functions. Recently two techniques for estimating g have been proposed. The first uses Fourier analysis and the method of kernels and the second uses orthogonal polynomials. It is known that the first technique is capable of yielding estimators that achieve (or almost achieve) the minimax convergence rate. We show that this is true for the technique based on orthogonal polynomials as well. The practical implementation of these estimators is also addressed. Computer experiments indicate that the kernel estimators give somewhat disappoint ing finite sample results. However, the orthogonal polynomial estimators appear to do much better. To improve on the finite sample performance of the orthogonal polynomial estimators, a way of estimating the optimal truncation parameter is proposed. The resultant estimators retain the convergence rates of the previous estimators and a Monte Carlo finite sample study reveals that they perform well relative to the ones based on the optimal truncation parameter.     

Construction of improved estimators of multinomial proportions

The improved large sample estimation theory for the probabilities of multi¬nomial distribution is developed under uncertain prior information (UPI) that the true proportion is a known quantity. Several estimators based on pretest and the Stein-type shrinkage rules are constructed. The expressions for the bias and risk of the proposed estimators are derived and compared with the maximum likelihood (ml) estimators. It is demonstrated that the shrinkage estimators are superior to the ml estimators. It is also shown that none of the preliminary test and shrinkage estimators dominate each other, though they perform y/ell relative to the ml estimators. The relative dominance picture of the estimators is presented. A simulation study is carried out to assess the performance of the estimators numerically in small samples.     

Estimation of the variance when kurtosis is known

The unbiased estimator of a population variance σ², S ² has traditionally been overemphasized, regardless of sample size. In this paper, alternative estimators of population variance are developed. These estimators are biased and have the minimum possible mean-squared error [and we define them as the “minimum mean-squared error biased estimators” (MBBE)]. The comparative merit of these estimators over the unbiased estimator is explored using relative efficiency (RE) (a ratio of mean-squared error values). It is found that, across all population distributions investigated, the RE of the MBBE is much higher for small samples and progressively diminishes to 1 with increasing sample size. The paper gives two applications involving the normal and exponential distributions.     

Studentized robust statistics for,main effects in a two-factor manova

Multiresponse experiments in two-faoior manova are considered. StalibLical procedures of the test and estimation, based on studentized robust statistics. for location parameters in the models arc piupused. Large sample properties of their procedures as the cell sizes tend to infinity are investigated. Although Fisher's consistency is assumed in the theory ol ili-estimators, it is not needed. in this paper. For the univariate case, it is found that the asymptotic relative efficiencies (ARE's) of the proposed procedures relative to classical procedures agrees with the classical A/Sisresults of Huber's one sample Mestimator relative to the sample mean. By simulation studies, it can be seen that the proposed estimators are more efficient than the least squares estimators except for the case where the underlying distribution is normal     

A note on non-negative mean square error estimation of regression estimators in randomized response surveys

Generalized regression estimators are considered for the survey population total of a quantitative sensitive variable based on randomized responses. Formulae are presented for ‘non-negative’ estimators of approximate mean square errors of these biased estimators when population and sample sizes are large.     

Comment on specification of household engel curves by nonparamftric regression

ABSTRACT

This paper first derives an adaptive estimator when heteroskedasticity is present in the individual specific error in an error component model and then compares the finite sample performance of the proposed estimator with various other estimators. While the Monte Carlo results show that the proposed estimator performs adequately in terms of relative efficiency, its performance on the basis of empirical size is quite similar to the other estimators considered.     

On Some Families of Estimators of Variance of Post-Stratified Sample Mean Using Two Auxiliary Variables

In this article, we propose some families of estimators for finite population variance of post-stratified sample mean using information on two auxiliary variables. The families of estimators are discussed in their optimum cases. The MSE of these estimators are derived to the first order of approximation. The percent relative efficiency of proposed families of estimators has been demonstrated with the numerical illustrations.     

A comparison of some robust,adaptive, and partially adaptive estimators of regression models

Numerous estimation techniques for regression models have been proposed. These procedures differ in how sample information is used in the estimation procedure. The efficiency of least squares (OLS) estimators implicity assumes normally distributed residuals and is very sensitive to departures from normality, particularly to "outliers" and thick-tailed distributions. Lead absolute deviation (LAD) estimators are less sensitive to outliers and are optimal for laplace random disturbances, but not for normal errors. This paper reports monte carlo comparisons of OLS,LAD, two robust estimators discussed by huber, three partially adaptiveestimators, newey's generalized method of moments estimator, and an adaptive maximum likelihood estimator based on a normal kernal studied by manski. This paper is the first to compare the relative performance of some adaptive robust estimators (partially adaptive and adaptive procedures) with some common nonadaptive robust estimators. The partially adaptive estimators are based on three flxible parametric distributions for the errors. These include the power exponential (Box-Tiao) and generalized t distributions, as well as a distribution for the errors, which is not necessarily symmetric. The adaptive procedures are "fully iterative" rather than one step estimators. The adaptive estimators have desirable large sample properties, but these properties do not necessarily carry over to the small sample case.

The monte carlo comparisons of the alternative estimators are based on four different specifications for the error distribution: a normal, a mixture of normals (or variance-contaminated normal), a bimodal mixture of normals, and a lognormal. Five hundred samples of 50 are used. The adaptive and partially adaptive estimators perform very well relative to the other estimation procedures considered, and preliminary results suggest that in some important cases they can perform much better than OLS with 50 to 80% reductions in standard errors.

     

A modified estimator of population mean using power transformation

Summary In this paper we have suggested two modified estimators of population mean using power transformation. It has been shown that the modified estimators are more efficient than the sample mean estimator, usual ratio estimator, Sisodia and Dwivedi’s (1981) estimator and Upadhyaya and Singh’s (1999) estimator at their optimum conditions. Empirical illustrations are also given for examining the merits of the proposed estimators. Following Kadilar and Cingi (2003) the work has been extended to stratified random sampling, and the same data set has been studied to examine the performance in stratified random sampling.     

Small area estimation of poverty indicators

The authors propose to estimate nonlinear small area population parameters by using the empirical Bayes (best) method, based on a nested error model. They focus on poverty indicators as particular nonlinear parameters of interest, but the proposed methodology is applicable to general nonlinear parameters. They use a parametric bootstrap method to estimate the mean squared error of the empirical best estimators. They also study small sample properties of these estimators by model‐based and design‐based simulation studies. Results show large reductions in mean squared error relative to direct area‐specific estimators and other estimators obtained by “simulated” censuses. The authors also apply the proposed method to estimate poverty incidences and poverty gaps in Spanish provinces by gender with mean squared errors estimated by the mentioned parametric bootstrap method. For the Spanish data, results show a significant reduction in coefficient of variation of the proposed empirical best estimators over direct estimators for practically all domains. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 38: 369–385; 2010 © 2010 Statistical Society of Canada     

Additive–multiplicative rates model for recurrent events

Recurrent events are frequently encountered in biomedical studies. Evaluating the covariates effects on the marginal recurrent event rate is of practical interest. There are mainly two types of rate models for the recurrent event data: the multiplicative rates model and the additive rates model. We consider a more flexible additive–multiplicative rates model for analysis of recurrent event data, wherein some covariate effects are additive while others are multiplicative. We formulate estimating equations for estimating the regression parameters. The estimators for these regression parameters are shown to be consistent and asymptotically normally distributed under appropriate regularity conditions. Moreover, the estimator of the baseline mean function is proposed and its large sample properties are investigated. We also conduct simulation studies to evaluate the finite sample behavior of the proposed estimators. A medical study of patients with cystic fibrosis suffered from recurrent pulmonary exacerbations is provided for illustration of the proposed method.     

Simultaneous estimation of means of two sensitive variables

In this paper, we introduce a new problem of simultaneous estimation of means of two quantitative sensitive variables by using only one randomized response another pseudo response from a respondent in a sample. The proposed estimators are extended to stratified random sampling, and the relative efficiency values are computed for equal, proportional, and optimum allocation with respect to the newly introduced naïve estimators.     

IS ADAPTIVE ESTIMATION USEFUL FOR PANEL MODELS WITH HETEROSKEDASTICITY IN THE INDIVIDUAL SPECIFIC ERROR COMPONENT? SOME MONTE CARLO EVIDENCE

This paper first derives an adaptive estimator when heteroskedasticity is present in the individual specific error in an error component model and then compares the finite sample performance of the proposed estimator with various other estimators. While the Monte Carlo results show that the proposed estimator performs adequately in terms of relative efficiency, its performance on the basis of empirical size is quite similar to the other estimators considered.     

Improved estimation for the parameters of an inverse gaussian distribution

James-Stein estimators are proposed for the #-parameter of an inverse Gaussian #G# distribution. The estimators of this class have smaller expected quadratic loss than the maximum likelihood estimator usually employed when analysing real sets of data. This problem is also studied for the case of an unknown nuisance parameter. Finally, improved estimators are considered for # in the two sample problem.     

Statistical properties of distance estimators

Estimating the distance between two points is of fundamental concern. This paper investigates some statistical properties of three estimators of the distance between two points on a plane. The results of several theoretical comparisons of the performance of the estimators assuming a large sample size are given. Also given is the comparison of the performance of the estimators using simulation when the sample size is small. These comparisons suggest that the estimator of choice is not the most “natural” estimator in this situation. Although the discussion is given in the framework of the plane, the results are readily extended to high dimensional spaces.     

Optimal estimation for finite population mean in two-phase sampling

Using two-phase sampling scheme, we propose a general class of estimators for finite population mean. This class depends on the sample means and variances of two auxiliary variables. The minimum variance bound for any estimator in the class is provided (up to terms of ordern ⁻¹). It is also proved that there exists at least a chain regression type estimator which reaches this minimum. Finally, it is shown that other proposed estimators can reach the minimum variance bound, i.e. the optimal estimator is not unique.     

Regression analysis for cumulative incidence probability under competing risks and left-truncated sampling

The cumulative incidence function provides intuitive summary information about competing risks data. Via a mixture decomposition of this function, Chang and Wang (Statist. Sinca 19:391–408, 2009) study how covariates affect the cumulative incidence probability of a particular failure type at a chosen time point. Without specifying the corresponding failure time distribution, they proposed two estimators and derived their large sample properties. The first estimator utilized the technique of weighting to adjust for the censoring bias, and can be considered as an extension of Fine’s method (J R Stat Soc Ser B 61: 817–830, 1999). The second used imputation and extends the idea of Wang (J R Stat Soc Ser B 65: 921–935, 2003) from a nonparametric setting to the current regression framework. In this article, when covariates take only discrete values, we extend both approaches of Chang and Wang (Statist Sinca 19:391–408, 2009) by allowing left truncation. Large sample properties of the proposed estimators are derived, and their finite sample performance is investigated through a simulation study. We also apply our methods to heart transplant survival data.     

Preliminary test estimation of the parameters of exponential and Pareto distributions for censored samples

This paper deals with the preliminary test estimation (PTE) of the parameters of the exponential and Pareto distributions in censored samples. The biases, risk functions, efficiency tables and the graphs for the relative efficiency for the proposed estimators for the parameters of the exponential and Pareto distributions are given. We find that the proposed estimators dominate the corresponding unrestricted (usual) estimators in the neighborhood of null hypothesis. The range of the parameters for which the proposed estimators dominate the corresponding usual estimators for different sample sizes and level of significance are given. The findings of the paper will be useful for the practitioners who are dealing with the censored samples in life testing experiments.     

A Pointwise Estimator for the k-Fold Convolution of a Distribution Function

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned with some parametric and nonparametric estimators for the k-fold convolution of a distribution function. An alternative estimator is proposed and its unbiasedness, asymptotic unbiasedness, and consistency properties are investigated. The asymptotic normality of this estimator is established. Some applications of the estimator are given in renewal processes. Finally, the computational procedures are described and the relative performance of these estimators for small sample sizes is investigated by a simulation study.     

A comparison of some robust, adaptive, and partially adaptive estimators of regression models

Numerous estimation techniques for regression models have been proposed. These procedures differ in how sample information is used in the estimation procedure. The efficiency of least squares (OLS) estimators implicity assumes normally distributed residuals and is very sensitive to departures from normality, particularly to "outliers" and thick-tailed distributions. Lead absolute deviation (LAD) estimators are less sensitive to outliers and are optimal for laplace random disturbances, but not for normal errors. This paper reports monte carlo comparisons of OLS,LAD, two robust estimators discussed by huber, three partially adaptiveestimators, newey's generalized method of moments estimator, and an adaptive maximum likelihood estimator based on a normal kernal studied by manski. This paper is the first to compare the relative performance of some adaptive robust estimators (partially adaptive and adaptive procedures) with some common nonadaptive robust estimators. The partially adaptive estimators are based on three flxible parametric distributions for the errors. These include the power exponential (Box-Tiao) and generalized t distributions, as well as a distribution for the errors, which is not necessarily symmetric. The adaptive procedures are "fully iterative" rather than one step estimators. The adaptive estimators have desirable large sample properties, but these properties do not necessarily carry over to the small sample case.

The monte carlo comparisons of the alternative estimators are based on four different specifications for the error distribution: a normal, a mixture of normals (or variance-contaminated normal), a bimodal mixture of normals, and a lognormal. Five hundred samples of 50 are used. The adaptive and partially adaptive estimators perform very well relative to the other estimation procedures considered, and preliminary results suggest that in some important cases they can perform much better than OLS with 50 to 80% reductions in standard errors.