Paper 3, Section II, K

Principles of Statistics | Part II, 2018

In the model {N(θ,Ip),θRp}\left\{\mathcal{N}\left(\theta, I_{p}\right), \theta \in \mathbb{R}^{p}\right\} of a Gaussian distribution in dimension pp, with unknown mean θ\theta and known identity covariance matrix IpI_{p}, we estimate θ\theta based on a sample of i.i.d. observations X1,,XnX_{1}, \ldots, X_{n} drawn from N(θ0,Ip)\mathcal{N}\left(\theta_{0}, I_{p}\right).

(a) Define the Fisher information I(θ0)I\left(\theta_{0}\right), and compute it in this model.

(b) We recall that the observed Fisher information in(θ)i_{n}(\theta) is given by

in(θ)=1ni=1nθlogf(Xi,θ)θlogf(Xi,θ)i_{n}(\theta)=\frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^{n} \nabla_{\theta} \log f\left(X_{i}, \theta\right) \nabla_{\theta} \log f\left(X_{i}, \theta\right)^{\top}

Find the limit of i^n=in(θ^MLE)\hat{i}_{n}=i_{n}\left(\hat{\theta}_{M L E}\right), where θ^MLE\hat{\theta}_{M L E} is the maximum likelihood estimator of θ\theta in this model.

(c) Define the Wald statistic Wn(θ)W_{n}(\theta) and compute it. Give the limiting distribution of Wn(θ0)W_{n}\left(\theta_{0}\right) and explain how it can be used to design a confidence interval for θ0\theta_{0}.

[You may use results from the course provided that you state them clearly.]

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