Restricted Parameter Space Estimation Problems : Admissibility and Minimaxity Properties

This monograph is addressed to anyone interested in the subject of restrict- parameter-space estimation, and in particular to those who want to learn, or bring their knowledge up to date, about (in)admissibility and minimaxity problems for such parameter spaces. The coverage starts in the early 1950s when the subject of inference for - stricted parameter spaces began to be studied and ends around the middle of 2004. It presents known, and also some new, results on (in)admissibility and minimaxity for nonsequential point estimation problems in restricted ?ni- dimensional parameter spaces. Relationships between various results are d- cussed and open problems are pointed out. Few complete proofs are given, but outlines of proofs are often supplied. The reader is always referred to the published papers and often results are clari?ed by presenting examples of the kind of problems an author solves, or of problems that cannot be solved by a particular result. The monograph does not touch on the subject of testing hypotheses in - stricted parameter spaces. The latest books on that subject are by Robertson, Wright and Dykstra (1988) and Akkerboom (1990), but many new results in that area have been obtained since. The monograph does have a chapter in which questions about the existence of maximum likelihood estimators are discussed. Some of their properties are also given there as well as some algorithms for computing them. Most of these results cannot be found in the Robertson, Wright, Dykstra book.

This monograph contains a critical review of 50 years of results on questions of admissibility and minimaxity of estimators of parameters that are restricted to closed convex subsets of R^k . It presents results of approximately 300 mostly-published papers on the subject, and points out relationships between them as well as open problems. The book does not touch on the subject of testing hypotheses for such parameter spaces. It does give an overview of known algorithms for computing maximum likelihood estimators under order-restrictions.

The book should be valuable as a reference for researchers and graduate students looking for what is known and unknown in the area of restricted parameter-space-estimation. It assumes a good knowledge of decision theory.

Constance van Eeden is Professeur émérite at the Université de Montréal, Honorary Professor at The University of British Columbia, and Professeure associée at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She previously held appointments at the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (1951–1960), Michigan State University (1960–1961), University of Minnesota (1961–1965), and Université de Montréal (1965–1989). She was a General Editor of Statistical Theory and Method Abstracts (1990–2004) and Associate Editor of the Annals of Statistics (1974–1977), The Canadian Journal of Statistics (1980–1994) and Annales des sciences mathématiques du Québec (1986–1998). She is a reviewer for Mathematical Reviews and a member of the Noether Award Committee. The Statistical Society of Canada awarded her their Gold Medal in 1990 and the Département de mathématiques et de statistique at the Université de Montréal named their yearly prize for the best-finishing undergraduate student in actuarial studies or statistics, the Prix Constance-van-Eeden. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and of the AmericanStatistical Association, and an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute. She (co-)authored 66 papers in refereed journals, as well as two books and (co-)supervised 14 PhD and 19 MSc students.