Equivalence of maximum likelihood estimation and iterative two-stage estimation for seemingly unrelated regression models

The seemingly unrelated regression model is viewed in the context of repeated measures analysis. Regression parameters and the variance-covariance matrix of the seemingly unrelated regression model can be estimated by using two-stage Aitken estimation. The first stage is to obtain a consistent estimator of the variance-covariance matrix. The second stage uses this matrix to obtain the generalized least squares estimators of the regression parameters. The maximum likelihood (ML) estimators of the regression parameters can be obtained by performing the two-stage estimation iteratively. The iterative two-stage estimation procedure is shown to be equivalent to the EM algorithm (Dempster, Laird, and Rubin, 1977) proposed by Jennrich and Schluchter (1986) and Laird, Lange, and Stram (1987) for repeated measures data. The equivalence of the iterative two-stage estimator and the ML estimator has been previously demonstrated empirically in a Monte Carlo study by Kmenta and Gilbert (1968). It does not appear to be widely known that the two estimators are equivalent theoretically. This paper demonstrates this equivalence.     

Inference Under Right Censoring in a Discrete Setup

In this article, we consider the right random censoring scheme in a discrete setup when the lifetime and censoring variables are independent and have geometric distributions with means 1/θ₁ and 1/θ₂, respectively. We first obtain the Maximum Likelihood and Method of Moment estimators of the unknown parameters. We also find the Bayes and Posterior Regret Gamma Minimax estimators of the parameters for the two cases when the prior distributions are dependent and independent, assuming a squared error loss function. We then discuss the Proportional Hazard model, and obtain Maximum Likelihood estimators of the unknown parameters and derive the Bayes estimators assuming squared error loss using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods.     

The mixed model for survey regression estimation

Estimation of the population mean under the regression model with random components is considered. Conditions under which the random components regression estimator is design consistent are given. It is shown that consistency holds when incorrect values are used for the variance components. The regression estimator constructed with model parameters that differ considerably from the true parameters performed well in a Monte Carlo study. Variance estimators for the regression predictor are suggested. A variance estimator appropriate for estimators constructed with a biased estimator for the between-group variance component performed well in the Monte Carlo study.     

Performance of Preliminary Test Estimator Under Linex Loss Function

This article describes two bivariate geometric distributions. We investigate characterizations of bivariate geometric distributions using conditional failure rates and study properties of the bivariate geometric distributions. The bivariate models are fitted to real-life data using the Method of Moments, Maximum Likelihood, and Bayes Estimators. Two methods of moments estimators, in each bivariate geometric model, are compared and evaluated for their performance in terms of bias vector and covariance matrix. This comparison is done through a Monte Carlo simulation. Chi-square goodness-of-fit tests are used to evaluate model performance.     

Point estimation of the stress–strength reliability parameter for parallel system with independent and non-identical components

In this article, the estimation problem of the multicomponent stress–strength reliability parameter is considered where the stress and the strength systems have arbitrary fixed numbers of independent and non-identical parallel components. It is assumed that the distribution functions of the stress and the strength components satisfy the proportional reversed hazard rate model. The study is done in more details when the baseline distributions are exponential. Maximum likelihood and uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimators are obtained and compared. Also, Bayes and empirical Bayes estimators are discussed and Monte Carlo simulations are carried out to compare their performances.     

Variational Inference for Heteroscedastic Semiparametric Regression

We develop fast mean field variational methodology for Bayesian heteroscedastic semiparametric regression, in which both the mean and variance are smooth, but otherwise arbitrary, functions of the predictors. Our resulting algorithms are purely algebraic, devoid of numerical integration and Monte Carlo sampling. The locality property of mean field variational Bayes implies that the methodology also applies to larger models possessing variance function components. Simulation studies indicate good to excellent accuracy, and considerable time savings compared with Markov chain Monte Carlo. We also provide some illustrations from applications.     

Monte Carlo Simulation Study of Biased Estimators in the Linear Regression Models with Correlated or Heteroscedastic Errors

In this study, the performance of the estimators proposed in the presence of multicollinearity in the linear regression model with heteroscedastic or correlated or both error terms is investigated under the matrix mean square error criterion. Structures of the autocorrelated error terms are given and a Monte Carlo simulation study is conducted to examine the relative efficiency of the estimators against each other.     

Two Stochastic Restricted Principal Components Regression Estimator in Linear Regression

In this article, we propose two stochastic restricted principal components regression estimator by combining the approach followed in obtaining the ordinary mixed estimator and the principal components regression estimator in linear regression model. The performance of the two new estimators in terms of matrix MSE criterion is studied. We also give an example and a Monte Carlo simulation to show the theoretical results.     

Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference in Multivariate Conditionally Heteroscedastic Dynamic Regression Models With Student t Innovations

We provide numerically reliable analytical expressions for the score, Hessian, and information matrix of conditionally heteroscedastic dynamic regression models when the conditional distribution is multivariatet. We also derive one-sided and two-sided Lagrange multiplier tests for multivariate normality versus multivariate t based on the first two moments of the squared norm of the standardized innovations evaluated at the Gaussian pseudo-maximum likelihood estimators of the conditional mean and variance parameters. Finally, we illustrate our techniques through both Monte Carlo simulations and an empirical application to 26 U.K. sectorial stock returns that confirms that their conditional distribution has fat tails.     

The Superiorities of Empirical Bayes Estimation of Variance Components in Random Effects Model

In this article, the Bayes estimators of variance components are derived and the parametric empirical Bayes estimators (PEBE) for the balanced one-way classification random effects model are constructed. The superiorities of the PEBE over the analysis of variance (ANOVA) estimators are investigated under the mean square error (MSE) criterion, some simulation results for the PEBE are obtained. Finally, a remark for the main results is given.     

Consistent estimators of the variance-covariance matrix of the gmanova model with missing data

A common problem in multivariate general linear models is partially missing response data. The simplest method of analysis in the presence of missing data has been to delete all observations on any individual with any missing data(listwise deletion) and utilize a traditional complete data approach. However: this can result in a great loss of information: and perhaps inconsistencies in the estimation of the variance-covariance matrix. In the generalized multivariate analysis of variance(GMANOVA) model with missing data: Kleinbaum(1973) proposed an estimated generalized least squares approach. In order to apply this: however: a consistent estimate of the variance-covariance matrix is needed. Kleinbaum proposed an estimator which is unbiased and consistent: but it does not take advantage of the fact that the underlying model is GMANOVA and not MANOVA. Using the fact that the underlying model is GMANOVA we have constructed four other con¬sistent estimators. A Monte Carlo simulation experiment is conducted tto further examine how well these estimators compare to the estimator proposed by Kleinbaum.     

A note on smoothing parameter selection for penalized spline smoothing

In nonparametric regression the smoothing parameter can be selected by minimizing a Mean Squared Error (MSE) based criterion. For spline smoothing one can also rewrite the smooth estimation as a Linear Mixed Model where the smoothing parameter appears as the a priori variance of spline basis coefficients. This allows to employ Maximum Likelihood (ML) theory to estimate the smoothing parameter as variance component. In this paper the relation between the two approaches is illuminated for penalized spline smoothing (P-spline) as suggested in Eilers and Marx Statist. Sci. 11(2) (1996) 89. Theoretical and empirical arguments are given showing that the ML approach is biased towards undersmoothing, i.e. it chooses a too complex model compared to the MSE. The result is in line with classical spline smoothing, even though the asymptotic arguments are different. This is because in P-spline smoothing a finite dimensional basis is employed while in classical spline smoothing the basis grows with the sample size.     

JAMES-STEIN RULE ESTIMATORS IN LINEAR REGRESSION MODELS WITH MULTIVARIATE-t DISTRIBUTED ERROR

This paper considers estimation of β in the regression model y =Xβ+μ, where the error components in μ have the jointly multivariate Student-t distribution. A family of James-Stein type estimators (characterised by nonstochastic scalars) is presented. Sufficient conditions involving only X are given, under which these estimators are better (with respect to the risk under a general quadratic loss function) than the usual minimum variance unbiased estimator (MVUE) of β. Approximate expressions for the bias, the risk, the mean square error matrix and the variance-covariance matrix for the estimators in this family are obtained. A necessary and sufficient condition for the dominance of this family over MVUE is also given.     

Robust estimation of variance components

New robust estimates for variance components are introduced. Two simple models are considered: the balanced one-way classification model with a random factor and the balanced mixed model with one random factor and one fixed factor. However, the method of estimation proposed can be extended to more complex models. The new method of estimation we propose is based on the relationship between the variance components and the coefficients of the least-mean-squared-error predictor between two observations of the same group. This relationship enables us to transform the problem of estimating the variance components into the problem of estimating the coefficients of a simple linear regression model. The variance-component estimators derived from the least-squares regression estimates are shown to coincide with the maximum-likelihood estimates. Robust estimates of the variance components can be obtained by replacing the least-squares estimates by robust regression estimates. In particular, a Monte Carlo study shows that for outlier-contaminated normal samples, the estimates of variance components derived from GM regression estimates and the derived test outperform other robust procedures.     

On the difference between ML and REML estimators in the modelling of multivariate longitudinal data

A random effects model is examined in the multivariate setting where more than one characteristics are measured at each time point. ML and REML estimators are obtained under the restriction that estimates of variance matrices being at least p.s.d. It is shown that REML has greater probability of giving full rank estimates of variance components matrices but as regards the efficiency in the estimation of the location parameter, correct specification of the number of random effects is needed. In general, REML provides larger estimates of variance of model parameters than ML.     

Small area estimation: the EBLUP estimator based on spatially correlated random area effects

This paper deals with small area indirect estimators under area level random effect models when only area level data are available and the random effects are correlated. The performance of the Spatial Empirical Best Linear Unbiased Predictor (SEBLUP) is explored with a Monte Carlo simulation study on lattice data and it is applied to the results of the sample survey on Life Conditions in Tuscany (Italy). The mean squared error (MSE) problem is discussed illustrating the MSE estimator in comparison with the MSE of the empirical sampling distribution of SEBLUP estimator. A clear tendency in our empirical findings is that the introduction of spatially correlated random area effects reduce both the variance and the bias of the EBLUP estimator. Despite some residual bias, the coverage rate of our confidence intervals comes close to a nominal 95%.     

A two-parameter estimator in the negative binomial regression model

In this article, a two-parameter estimator is proposed to combat multicollinearity in the negative binomial regression model. The proposed two-parameter estimator is a general estimator which includes the maximum likelihood (ML) estimator, the ridge estimator (RE) and the Liu estimator as special cases. Some properties on the asymptotic mean-squared error (MSE) are derived and necessary and sufficient conditions for the superiority of the two-parameter estimator over the ML estimator and sufficient conditions for the superiority of the two-parameter estimator over the RE and the Liu estimator in the asymptotic mean-squared error (MSE) matrix sense are obtained. Furthermore, several methods and three rules for choosing appropriate shrinkage parameters are proposed. Finally, a Monte Carlo simulation study is given to illustrate some of the theoretical results.     

New Algorithms for Evaluating the Log-Likelihood Function Derivatives in the AI-REML Method

In this study, we propose several improvements of the Average Information Restricted Maximum Likelihood algorithms for estimating the variance components for genetic mapping of quantitative traits. The improved methods are applicable when two variance components are to be estimated. The improvements are related to the algebraic part of the methods and utilize the properties of the underlying matrix structures.

In contrast to previously developed algorithms, the explicit computation of a matrix inverse is replaced by the solution of a linear system of equations with multiple right-hand sides, based on a particular matrix decomposition. The computational costs of the proposed algorithms are analyzed and compared.     

Identifiability and Comparison of Estimation Methods on Weibull Mixture Models

In this article, the finite mixture model of Weibull distributions is studied, the identifiability of the model with m components is proven, and the parameter estimators for the case of two components resulted by several algorithms are compared. The parameter estimators are obtained with maximum likelihood performing calculations with different algorithms: expectation-maximization (EM), Fisher scoring, backfitting, optimization of k-nearest neighbor approach, and random walk algorithm using Monte Carlo simulation. The Akaike information criterion and the log-likelihood value are used to compare models. In general, the proposed random walk algorithm shows better performance in mean square error and bias. Finally, the results are applied to electronic component lifetime data.     

Asymptotics and bootstrap for random-effects panel data transformation models

This article investigates the asymptotic properties of quasi-maximum likelihood (QML) estimators for random-effects panel data transformation models where both the response and (some of) the covariates are subject to transformations for inducing normality, flexible functional form, homoskedasticity, and simple model structure. We develop a QML-type procedure for model estimation and inference. We prove the consistency and asymptotic normality of the QML estimators, and propose a simple bootstrap procedure that leads to a robust estimate of the variance-covariance (VC) matrix. Monte Carlo results reveal that the QML estimators perform well in finite samples, and that the gains by using the robust VC matrix estimate for inference can be enormous.