Density Estimation (Advanced Data Analysis from an Elementary Point of View)
Three-Toed Sloth 2013-03-21
Summary:
The desirability of estimating not just conditional means, variances, etc., but whole distribution functions. Parametric maximum likelihood is a solution, if the parametric model is right. Histograms and empirical cumulative distribution functions are non-parametric ways of estimating the distribution: do they work? The Glivenko-Cantelli law on the convergence of empirical distribution functions, a.k.a. "the fundamental theorem of statistics". More on histograms: they converge on the right density, if bins keep shrinking but the number of samples per bin keeps growing. Kernel density estimation and its properties: convergence on the true density if the bandwidth shrinks at the right rate; superior performance to histograms; the curse of dimensionality again. An example with cross-country economic data. Kernels for discrete variables. Estimating conditional densities; another example with the OECD data. Some issues with likelihood, maximum likelihood, and non-parametric estimation. Simulating from kernel density estimates and from histograms.
Reading: Notes, chapter 15