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Autores principales: Maanan, Saïd, Dermoune, Azzouz, Ghini, Ahmed El
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26447
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author Maanan, Saïd
Dermoune, Azzouz
Ghini, Ahmed El
author_facet Maanan, Saïd
Dermoune, Azzouz
Ghini, Ahmed El
contents This paper introduces a unified family of smoothed quantile estimators that continuously interpolate between classical empirical quantiles and the sample mean. The estimators q(z, h) are defined as minimizers of a regularized objective function depending on two parameters: a smoothing parameter h $\ge$ 0 and a location parameter z $\in$ R. When h = 0 and z $\in$ (-1, 1), the estimator reduces to the empirical quantile of order $τ$ = (1z)/2; as h $\rightarrow$ $\infty$, it converges to the sample mean for any fixed z. We establish consistency, asymptotic normality, and an explicit variance expression characterizing the efficiency-robustness trade-off induced by h. A key geometric insight shows that for each fixed quantile level $τ$ , the admissible parameter pairs (z, h) lie on a straight line in the parameter space, along which the population quantile remains constant while asymptotic efficiency varies. The analysis reveals two regimes: under light-tailed distributions (e.g., Gaussian), smoothing yields a monotonic but asymptotic variance reduction with no finite optimum; under heavy-tailed distributions (e.g., Laplace), a finite smoothing level h * ($τ$ ) > 0 achieves strict efficiency improvement over the classical empirical quantile. Numerical illustrations confirm these theoretical predictions and highlight how smoothing balances robustness and efficiency across quantile levels.
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spellingShingle Smoothed Quantile Estimation via Interpolation to the Mean
Maanan, Saïd
Dermoune, Azzouz
Ghini, Ahmed El
Methodology
This paper introduces a unified family of smoothed quantile estimators that continuously interpolate between classical empirical quantiles and the sample mean. The estimators q(z, h) are defined as minimizers of a regularized objective function depending on two parameters: a smoothing parameter h $\ge$ 0 and a location parameter z $\in$ R. When h = 0 and z $\in$ (-1, 1), the estimator reduces to the empirical quantile of order $τ$ = (1z)/2; as h $\rightarrow$ $\infty$, it converges to the sample mean for any fixed z. We establish consistency, asymptotic normality, and an explicit variance expression characterizing the efficiency-robustness trade-off induced by h. A key geometric insight shows that for each fixed quantile level $τ$ , the admissible parameter pairs (z, h) lie on a straight line in the parameter space, along which the population quantile remains constant while asymptotic efficiency varies. The analysis reveals two regimes: under light-tailed distributions (e.g., Gaussian), smoothing yields a monotonic but asymptotic variance reduction with no finite optimum; under heavy-tailed distributions (e.g., Laplace), a finite smoothing level h * ($τ$ ) > 0 achieves strict efficiency improvement over the classical empirical quantile. Numerical illustrations confirm these theoretical predictions and highlight how smoothing balances robustness and efficiency across quantile levels.
title Smoothed Quantile Estimation via Interpolation to the Mean
topic Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26447