English

Maximum likelihood estimation for discrete exponential families and random graphs

Probability 2021-02-23 v3 Combinatorics Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

We characterize the existence of the maximum likelihood estimator for discrete exponential families. Our criterion is simple to apply as we show in various settings, most notably for exponential models of random graphs. As an application, we point out the size of independent identically distributed samples for which the maximum likelihood estimator exists with high probability.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1911.13143,
  title  = {Maximum likelihood estimation for discrete exponential families and random graphs},
  author = {Krzysztof Bogdan and Michał Bosy and Tomasz Skalski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.13143},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

21 pages, minor editorial changes, added connections to the criterion of Barndorff-Nielsen and linear programming

R2 v1 2026-06-23T12:31:07.030Z