Skip to main content
Log in

Asymptotic risk behavior of mean vector and variance estimators and the problem of positive normal mean

  • Estimation
  • Published:
Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Asymptotic risk behavior of estimators of the unknow variance and of the unknown mean vector in a multivariate normal distribution is considered for a general loss. It is shown that in both problems this characteristic is related to the risk in an estimation problem of a positive normal mean under quadratic loss function. A curious property of the Brewster-Zidek variance estimator of the normal variance is also noticed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Baranchik, A. J. (1970). A family of minimax estimators of the mean of a multivariate normal distribution, Ann. Math. Statist., 41, 642–656.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brewster, J. F. and Zidek, J. V. (1974). Improving on equivariant estimators, Ann. Statist., 2, 21–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casella, G. and Hwang, J. T. (1982). Limit expressions for the risk of James-Stein estimators, Canad. J. Statist., 10, 305–309.

    Google Scholar 

  • Efron, B. and Morris, C. N. (1976). Families of minimax estimators of the mean of a multivariate normal distribution, Ann. Statist., 4, 11–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, W. and Stein, C. (1961). Estimation with quadratic loss, Proc. Fourth Berkeley Symp. on Math. Statist. Prob., Vol. 1, 361–379, Univ. of California Press, Berkeley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, M. W. (1961). Admissible and minimax estimates of parameters in truncated spaces, Ann. Math. Statist., 32, 136–142.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehmann, E. L. (1983). Theory of Point Estimation, Wiley, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maatta, J. M. and Casella, G. (1990). Developments in decision-theoretic variance estimation, Statist. Sci., 5, 90–120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rukhin, A. L. (1987). How much better are better estimators of a normal variance?, J. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 82, 925–928.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rukhin, A. L. and Ananda, M. A. (1992). Risk behavior of variance estimators in multivariate normal distributions, Statist. Probab. Lett., 13, 159–166.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stein, C. (1964). Inadmissibility of the usual estimator for the variance of a normal distribution with unknown mean, Ann. Inst. Statist. Math., 16, 155–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sugiura, N. and Fujimoto, M. (1982). Asymptotic risk comparison of improved estimators for normal covariance matrix, Tsukuba J. Math., 6, 107–126.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sugiura, N. and Konno, Y. (1987). Risk of improved estimators for generalized variance and precision, Advances in Multivariate Statistical Analysis (ed. A. K. Gupta), 353–371, Reidel, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

Research supported by NSF Grant DMS 9000999 and by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Distinguished Scientist Award.

University of Münster

About this article

Cite this article

Rukhin, A.L. Asymptotic risk behavior of mean vector and variance estimators and the problem of positive normal mean. Ann Inst Stat Math 44, 299–311 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00058642

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00058642

Key words and phrases

Navigation