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Theory of Statistics - George Mason University

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236 3 Basic Statistical <strong>Theory</strong><br />

Certain elements that may be central to a particular one <strong>of</strong> these approaches<br />

may be found in other approaches; for example the concept <strong>of</strong> likelihood<br />

can be found in most approaches. The principles <strong>of</strong> data reduction<br />

and the inferential information in a sample that we discussed in the previous<br />

section obviously must be recognized in any approach to statistical inference.<br />

Finally, there are certain methods that are common to more than one <strong>of</strong> these<br />

approaches. Abstracting and studying the specific method itself may illuminate<br />

salient properties <strong>of</strong> the overall approach. An example <strong>of</strong> a method that<br />

can be studied in a unified manner is the use <strong>of</strong> estimating equations, which<br />

we discuss in Section 3.2.5.<br />

In the following four subsections, 3.2.1 through 3.2.4, we will briefly discuss<br />

the first four <strong>of</strong> the approaches list above. The “decision theory” approach<br />

to statistical inference is based on a loss function, and we will discuss this<br />

important approach in Section 3.3.<br />

Some Methods in Statistical Inference<br />

Within the broad framework <strong>of</strong> a particular approach to statistical inference,<br />

there are various specific methods that may be applied. I do not attempt a<br />

comprehensive listing <strong>of</strong> these methods, but in order to emphasize the hierarchy<br />

<strong>of</strong> general approaches and specific methods, I will list a few.<br />

• transformations<br />

• transforms (functional transformations)<br />

• asymptotic inference<br />

this includes a wide range <strong>of</strong> methods such as<br />

– the delta method (first order and second order)<br />

– various Taylor series expansions (<strong>of</strong> which the delta method is an example)<br />

– orthogonal series representations<br />

• computational inference<br />

(this includes a wide range <strong>of</strong> methods, including MCMC)<br />

• decomposition <strong>of</strong> variance into variance components<br />

• Rao-Blackwellization<br />

• scoring<br />

• EM methods<br />

• bootstrap<br />

• jackknife<br />

• empirical likelihood<br />

• tilting<br />

• use <strong>of</strong> saddlepoint approximations<br />

• PDF decomposition<br />

It is worthwhile to be familiar with a catalog <strong>of</strong> common operations in<br />

mathematical statistics. A list such as that above can be useful when working<br />

<strong>Theory</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Statistics</strong> c○2000–2013 James E. Gentle

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