Statistics 2003-2004
PhD course Tinbergen Institute

Contents

The course is intended for students who have a deficiency in probability and statistics. It starts off with the very first principles of probability and quickly passes on to essential statistical techniques. Estimation and testing theory will be reviewed, including maximum likelihood estimators, likelihood ratio test and (least squares) regression. The course is based on John A. Rice, Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis, Duxbury Press, Belmont, California. From this book we will treat the chapters 1-6, 8, 9 and 14. All together the topics will be treated in 8 lectures. Students are required to study the corresponding theory and examples in the book as well as to make accompanying exercices.

In the course we treat the following topics.

Sample spaces, probability measures, conditional probability, independent events, Distribution functions, random variables with discrete and continuous distributions, functions of random variables, Multivariate distributions, random vectors, independent random variables, conditional distributions, functions of random vectors and their distributions, Expectation and variance, covariance and correlation, conditional expectation, the law of large numbers, central limit theorem, chi-square and distributions, Estimation, method of moments, maximum likelihood, large sample theory, confidence intervals, Cramer-Rao bound, hypothesis testing, Neyman-Pearson paradigm, likelihood ratio tests, confidence intervals, Linear regression, least squares estimation of regression parameters, testing regression hypotheses.

Literature

John A. Rice, Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis, 2nd Edition, Duxbury Press, 1995
Available additional notes are an exercise with normal distributions (in pdf)
You may also want to see copies of the slides (in ps or in pdf).

Examination

Written exam; you are allowed to use the book and a pocket calculator. To get an idea of what the exam could like, look at last year's exam.
Date and time: October 21, 09.30 - 12.30 hrs
Place:

Lecturer

P.J.C. Spreij

Schedule

Lectures
Tuesdays: September 2, 9, 16, 23, 30: 09.30 - 12.30
Wednesdays: September 3, 10, 17: 13.30 - 16.30


Programme

The programme is roughly the same that of the previous year. Below you'll find what has actually been treated during the classes.

Lecture 1
Rice, chapter 1
Exercises: chapter 1: 1, 4, 5, 11, 19, 27, 33, 53, 57, 63, 65
Lecture 2 Rice, chapter 2
Exercises: chapter 2: 3, 5, 13, 21, 23, 27, 33, 41, 44, 53, 55, 59
Lecture 3 Rice, (parts of) sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 3.6
Exercises: chapter 3: 1, 3, 7, 17(a,b), 32, 34, 37, 38, 55, 57
Lecture 4 Rice, (parts of) sections 3.5, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4
Exercises: chapter 4: 2, 4, 6, 12, 31, 34, 45, 46, 53, 64, 65, 71
Lecture 5 Rice, chapter 5 (skip the considerations involving moment generating functions), sections 6.1, 6.2,
extra on multivariate normal distributions (see transparancies)
Exercices: chapter 5: 1, 3, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 23, 26
Lecture 6 Rice, sections 8.3-8.5.2, part of 8.5.3, 8.6
Exercises: chapter 8: 4, 5, 8, 17, 19ab, 39, 42, 44, 49, Cauchy-Schwartz inequality
Lecture 7 Rice, sections 8.5.3, 9.1-9.5
Exercises: chapter 8: 52, chapter 9: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 15, 18, 7, 21
Lecture 8 Rice, sections 14.1-14.4
Exercises: chapter 9: 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11, 20, 24, 25, 31



To the Korteweg-de Vries Institute for Mathematics or to the homepage of Peter Spreij.

Email: spreij@science.uva.nl