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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Fischer, Adrian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.18503
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author Fischer, Adrian
author_facet Fischer, Adrian
contents We revisit the problem of parameter estimation for discrete probability distributions with values in $\mathbb{Z}^d$. To this end, we adapt a technique called Stein's Method of Moments to discrete distributions which often gives closed-form estimators when standard methods such as maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) require numerical optimization. These new estimators exhibit good performance in small-sample settings which is demonstrated by means of a comparison to the MLE through simulation studies. We pay special attention to truncated distributions and show that the asymptotic behavior of our estimators is not affected by an unknown (rectangular) truncation domain.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_18503
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle New closed-form estimators for discrete distributions
Fischer, Adrian
Statistics Theory
We revisit the problem of parameter estimation for discrete probability distributions with values in $\mathbb{Z}^d$. To this end, we adapt a technique called Stein's Method of Moments to discrete distributions which often gives closed-form estimators when standard methods such as maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) require numerical optimization. These new estimators exhibit good performance in small-sample settings which is demonstrated by means of a comparison to the MLE through simulation studies. We pay special attention to truncated distributions and show that the asymptotic behavior of our estimators is not affected by an unknown (rectangular) truncation domain.
title New closed-form estimators for discrete distributions
topic Statistics Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.18503