Related papers: Minimum divergence estimators, maximum likelihood …
Robust inference based on the minimization of statistical divergences has proved to be a useful alternative to the classical techniques based on maximum likelihood and related methods. Recently Ghosh et al. (2013) proposed a general class…
We give a comprehensive theoretical characterization of a nonparametric estimator for the $L_2^2$ divergence between two continuous distributions. We first bound the rate of convergence of our estimator, showing that it is…
Likelihood-free inference methods typically make use of a distance between simulated and real data. A common example is the maximum mean discrepancy (MMD), which has previously been used for approximate Bayesian computation, minimum…
The $\lambda$-exponential family generalizes the standard exponential family via a generalized convex duality motivated by optimal transport. It is the constant-curvature analogue of the exponential family from the information-geometric…
We consider the estimation of the mixing distribution of a normal distribution where both the shift and scale are unobserved random variables. We argue that in general, the model is not identifiable. We give an elegant non-constructive…
This paper addresses differential inference in time-varying parametric probabilistic models, like graphical models with changing structures. Instead of estimating a high-dimensional model at each time point and estimating changes later, we…
The exponential-family random graph models (ERGMs) have emerged as an important framework for modeling social networks for a wide variety of relational types. ERGMs for valued networks are less well-developed than their unvalued…
Unlike parametric regression, machine learning (ML) methods do not generally require precise knowledge of the true data generating mechanisms. As such, numerous authors have advocated for ML methods to estimate causal effects.…
We give an asymptotic development of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), or any other estimator defined implicitly, in a way which involves the limiting behavior of the score and its higher-order derivatives. This development, which is…
One of the most common methods for statistical inference is the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE). The MLE needs to compute the normalization constant in statistical models, and it is often intractable. Using unnormalized statistical…
We study nonparametric estimation for current status data with competing risks. Our main interest is in the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), and for comparison we also consider a simpler ``naive estimator.'' Groeneboom,…
Due to its heavy-tailed and fully parametric form, the multivariate generalized Gaussian distribution (MGGD) has been receiving much attention for modeling extreme events in signal and image processing applications. Considering the…
This paper discusses minimum distance estimation method in the linear regression model with dependent errors which are strongly mixing. The regression parameters are estimated through the minimum distance estimation method, and asymptotic…
Estimators derived from an EM algorithm are not robust since they are based on the maximization of the likelihood function. We propose a proximal-point algorithm based on the EM algorithm which aim to minimize a divergence criterion.…
We describe the underlying probabilistic interpretation of alpha and beta divergences. We first show that beta divergences are inherently tied to Tweedie distributions, a particular type of exponential family, known as exponential…
For the univariate current status and, more generally, the interval censoring model, distribution theory has been developed for the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and smoothed maximum likelihood estimator (SMLE) of the unknown…
The sum of independent, but not necessary identically distributed, exponential random variables follows hypoexponential distribution. We focus on a particular case when all, but one rate parameters of the exponential variables are…
The maximum mean discrepancy (MMD) is a kernel-based distance between probability distributions useful in many applications (Gretton et al. 2012), bearing a simple estimator with pleasing computational and statistical properties. Being able…
The Laplace approximation (LA) has been proposed as a method for approximating the marginal likelihood of statistical models with latent variables. However, the approximate maximum likelihood estimators (MLEs) based on the LA are often…
The problem of nonlinear functional of parameters, such as differential entropy, has received much attention in information theory and statistics. In many situations, prior information about the parameters is available in the form of order…