Möbius inversion and the iterated bootstrap

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Schäfer, Florian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Schäfer, Florian
author_facet Schäfer, Florian
contents Estimating nonlinear functionals of probability distributions from samples is a fundamental statistical problem. The "plug-in" estimator obtained by applying the target functional to the empirical distribution of samples is biased. Resampling methods such as the bootstrap derive artificial datasets from the original one by resampling. Comparing the outcome of the plug-in estimator in the original and resampled datasets allows estimating and thus correcting the bias. In the asymptotic setting, iterations of this procedure attain an arbitrarily high order of bias correction, but finite sample results are scarce. This work develops a new theoretical understanding of bootstrap bias correction by viewing it as an iterative linear solver for the combinatorial operation of Möbius inversion. It sharply characterizes the regime of linear convergence of the bootstrap bias reduction for moment polynomials. It uses these results to show its superalgebraic convergence rate for band-limited functionals. Finally, it derives a modified bootstrap iteration enabling the unbiased estimation of unknown order-$m$ moment polynomials in $m$ bootstrap iterations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_05826
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Möbius inversion and the iterated bootstrap
Schäfer, Florian
Statistics Theory
Combinatorics
Probability
62F40, 62G09, 62R01, 65F10
Estimating nonlinear functionals of probability distributions from samples is a fundamental statistical problem. The "plug-in" estimator obtained by applying the target functional to the empirical distribution of samples is biased. Resampling methods such as the bootstrap derive artificial datasets from the original one by resampling. Comparing the outcome of the plug-in estimator in the original and resampled datasets allows estimating and thus correcting the bias. In the asymptotic setting, iterations of this procedure attain an arbitrarily high order of bias correction, but finite sample results are scarce. This work develops a new theoretical understanding of bootstrap bias correction by viewing it as an iterative linear solver for the combinatorial operation of Möbius inversion. It sharply characterizes the regime of linear convergence of the bootstrap bias reduction for moment polynomials. It uses these results to show its superalgebraic convergence rate for band-limited functionals. Finally, it derives a modified bootstrap iteration enabling the unbiased estimation of unknown order-$m$ moment polynomials in $m$ bootstrap iterations.
title Möbius inversion and the iterated bootstrap
topic Statistics Theory
Combinatorics
Probability
62F40, 62G09, 62R01, 65F10
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.05826