Quant Memo
Statistics/●●●●●

Decompose mean squared error into bias and variance

Let θ^\hat{\theta} be an estimator of a parameter θ\theta, with mean squared error defined as MSE(θ^)=E[(θ^θ)2]\operatorname{MSE}(\hat{\theta}) = \mathbb{E}[(\hat{\theta} - \theta)^2].

Show that MSE=Var(θ^)+Bias(θ^)2\operatorname{MSE} = \operatorname{Var}(\hat{\theta}) + \operatorname{Bias}(\hat{\theta})^2, and give an example where a biased estimator beats an unbiased one on MSE.

Your answer

This one is open-ended. Work it through, then check your reasoning against the full solution.

More Statistics questions