Stein rule prediction of the composite target function in a general linear regression model

This paper considers the problem of simultaneous prediction of the actual and average values of the dependent variable in a general linear regression model. Utilizing the philosophy of Stein rule procedure, a family of improved predictors for a linear function of the actual and expected value of the dependent variable for the forecast period has been proposed. An unbiased estimator for the mean squared error (MSE) matrix of the proposed family of predictors has been obtained and dominance of the family of Stein rule predictors over the best linear unbiased predictor (BLUP) has been established under a quadratic loss function.     

The asymptotic distribution of the partial attributable risk in cross-sectional studies

The partial attributable risk (PAR) has been introduced as a tool for partitioning the responsibility for causing an adverse event between various risk factors. It has arisen from epidemiology, but it is also a valid general risk allocation concept, which can, for example, be applied to data from customer satisfaction surveys. So far, a variance formula for the PAR has been missing so that the confidence intervals were not directly available. This paper provides the asymptotic normal distribution for the PAR determined from a cross-sectional study.     

Bayesian estimation of sensitivity level and population proportion of a sensitive characteristic in a binary optional unrelated question RRT model

Sihm et al. (2016 Sihm, J. S., A. Chhabra, and S. N. Gupta. 2016. An optional unrelated question RRT model. Involve: A Journal of Mathematics 9 (2):195–209.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) proposed an unrelated question binary optional randomized response technique (RRT) model for estimating the proportion of population that possess a sensitive characteristic and the sensitivity level of the question. In our work, decision theoretic approach has been followed to obtain Bayes estimates of the two parameters along with their corresponding minimal Bayes posterior expected losses (BPEL) using beta prior and squared error loss function (SELF). Relative losses are also examined to compare the performances of the Bayes estimates with those of the classical estimates obtained by Sihm et al. (2016 Sihm, J. S., A. Chhabra, and S. N. Gupta. 2016. An optional unrelated question RRT model. Involve: A Journal of Mathematics 9 (2):195–209.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). The results obtained are illustrated with the help of real survey data using non informative prior.     

A note on the equivariant estimation of an exponential scale using progressively censored data

We consider the problem of estimating the scale parameter θ$\theta$ of the shifted exponential distribution with unknown location based on a type II progressively censored sample. Under a large class of bowl-shaped loss functions, a smooth estimator, that dominates the minimum risk equivariant estimator of θ$\theta$, is proposed. A numerical study is performed and shows that the improved estimator yields significant risk reduction over the MRE.     

Asymptotics of cross-validated risk estimation in estimator selection and performance assessment

Risk estimation is an important statistical question for the purposes of selecting a good estimator (i.e., model selection) and assessing its performance (i.e., estimating generalization error). This article introduces a general framework for cross-validation and derives distributional properties of cross-validated risk estimators in the context of estimator selection and performance assessment. Arbitrary classes of estimators are considered, including density estimators and predictors for both continuous and polychotomous outcomes. Results are provided for general full data loss functions (e.g., absolute and squared error, indicator, negative log density). A broad definition of cross-validation is used in order to cover leave-one-out cross-validation, V-fold cross-validation, Monte Carlo cross-validation, and bootstrap procedures. For estimator selection, finite sample risk bounds are derived and applied to establish the asymptotic optimality of cross-validation, in the sense that a selector based on a cross-validated risk estimator performs asymptotically as well as an optimal oracle selector based on the risk under the true, unknown data generating distribution. The asymptotic results are derived under the assumption that the size of the validation sets converges to infinity and hence do not cover leave-one-out cross-validation. For performance assessment, cross-validated risk estimators are shown to be consistent and asymptotically linear for the risk under the true data generating distribution and confidence intervals are derived for this unknown risk. Unlike previously published results, the theorems derived in this and our related articles apply to general data generating distributions, loss functions (i.e., parameters), estimators, and cross-validation procedures.     

The use of GARCH models in VaR estimation

We evaluate the performance of an extensive family of ARCH models in modeling the daily Value-at-Risk (VaR) of perfectly diversified portfolios in five stock indices, using a number of distributional assumptions and sample sizes. We find, first, that leptokurtic distributions are able to produce better one-step-ahead VaR forecasts; second, the choice of sample size is important for the accuracy of the forecast, whereas the specification of the conditional mean is indifferent. Finally, the ARCH structure producing the most accurate forecasts is different for every portfolio and specific to each equity index.     

Estimation of parameters of exponential distribution in the truncated space using asymmetric loss function

This paper is concerned with estimation of location and scale parameters of an exponential distribution when the location parameter is bounded above by a known constant. We propose estimators which are better than the standard estimators in the unrestricted case with respect to the suitable choice of LINEX loss. The admissibility of the modified Pitman estimators with respect to the LINEX loss is proved. Finally the theory developed is applied to the problem of estimating the location and scale parameters of two exponential distributions when the location parameters are ordered.