Related papers: A Tribute to Charles Stein
This paper provides a framework for estimating the mean and variance of a high-dimensional normal density. The main setting considered is a fixed number of vector following a high-dimensional normal distribution with unknown mean and…
The James-Stein estimator's dominance over maximum likelihood in terms of mean square error (MSE) has been one of the most celebrated results in modern statistics, suggesting that biased estimators can systematically outperform unbiased…
Given $n$ i.i.d. samples from an unknown discrete distribution over an unknown set, the unseen species problem is to predict how many new outcomes would be observed in $m$ additional samples. For small $m$ we show that the Good-Toulmin…
We introduce a new version of Stein's method that reduces a large class of normal approximation problems to variance bounding exercises, thus making a connection between central limit theorems and concentration of measure. Unlike Skorokhod…
Given a sequence of random variables $X^n=X_1,\ldots, X_n$, discriminating between two hypotheses on the underlying probability distribution is a key task in statistics and information theory. Of interest here is the Stein exponent, i.e.…
We introduce a distributionally robust maximum likelihood estimation model with a Wasserstein ambiguity set to infer the inverse covariance matrix of a $p$-dimensional Gaussian random vector from $n$ independent samples. The proposed model…
The problem of estimating a normal covariance matrix is considered from a decision-theoretic point of view, where the dimension of the covariance matrix is larger than the sample size. This paper addresses not only the nonsingular case but…
We look at stochastic optimization problems through the lens of statistical decision theory. In particular, we address admissibility, in the statistical decision theory sense, of the natural sample average estimator for a stochastic…
We discuss a characterization of the centered Gaussian distribution which can be read from results of Archimedes and Maxwell, and relate it to Charles Stein's well-known characterization of the same distribution. These characterizations fit…
In a recent paper, Gaunt 2020 extended Stein's method to limit distributions that can be represented as a function $g:\mathbb{R}^d\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ of a centered multivariate normal random vector $\Sigma^{1/2}\mathbf{Z}$ with…
We study a novel class of affine invariant and consistent tests for multivariate normality. The tests are based on a characterization of the standard $d$-variate normal distribution by means of the unique solution of an initial value…
In this paper we establish a multivariate exchangeable pairs approach within the framework of Stein's method to assess distributional distances to potentially singular multivariate normal distributions. By extending the statistics into a…
This paper focuses on investigating Stein's invariant shrinkage estimators for large sample covariance matrices and precision matrices in high-dimensional settings. We consider models that have nearly arbitrary population covariance…
Shrinkage estimation usually reduces variance at the cost of bias. But when we care only about some parameters of a model, I show that we can reduce variance without incurring bias if we have additional information about the distribution of…
Since Stein's 1956 seminal paper, shrinkage has played a fundamental role in both parametric and nonparametric inference. This article discusses minimaxity and adaptive minimaxity in nonparametric function estimation. Three interrelated…
We study the estimation of the parametric components of single and multiple index volatility models. Using the first- and second-order Stein's identities, we develop methods that are applicable for the estimation of the variance index in…
Consider estimating the n by p matrix of means of an n by p matrix of independent normally distributed observations with constant variance, where the performance of an estimator is judged using a p by p matrix quadratic error loss function.…
Let F ($\nu$) be the centered Gamma law with parameter $\nu$ > 0 and let us denote by P Y the probability distribution of a random vector Y. We develop a multidimensional variant of the Stein's method for Gamma approximation that allows to…
Motivated by the omnipresence of extreme value distributions in limit theorems involving extremes of random processes, we adapt Stein's method to include these laws as possible target distributions. We do so by using the generator approach…
Stein's method is a powerful technique for proving central limit theorems in probability theory when more straightforward approaches cannot be implemented easily. This article begins with a survey of the historical development of Stein's…