Asymptotic cumulants of the minimum phi-divergence estimator for categorical data under possible model misspecification

摘要

The asymptotic cumulants of the minimum phi-divergence estimators of the parameters in a model for categorical data are obtained up to the fourth order with the higher-order asymptotic variance under possible model misspecification. The corresponding asymptotic cumulants up to the third order for the studentized minimum phi-divergence estimator are also derived. These asymptotic cumulants, when a model is misspecified, depend on the form of the phi-divergence. Numerical illustrations with simulations are given for typical cases of the phi-divergence, where the maximum likelihood estimator does not necessarily give best results. Real data examples are shown using log-linear models for contingency tables.