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Estimation In Truncated Exponential Family Of Distributions, Laxman M. Hegde

Mathematics & Statistics Theses & Dissertations

Estimating the parameters of a truncated distribution is a well known problem in statistical inference. The non-existence of the maximum likelihood estimator (m.l.e.) with positive probability in certain truncated distributions is not well known. To mention a few results in the literature:

(i) Deemer and Votaw 1955 show that the maximum likelihood estimator does not exist in a truncated negative exponential distribution on 0,T , T > 0 known, whenever the sample mean x (GREATERTHEQ) T/2.

(ii) Broeder 1955 shows that the maximum likelihood estimator of the scale parameter of a truncated gamma distribution, with the shape parameter being known, becomes …