{"paper":{"title":"Rethinking Mean Square Error: Why Information is a Superior Assessment of Estimators","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["stat.TH"],"primary_cat":"math.ST","authors_text":"Paul W. Vos","submitted_at":"2024-12-11T15:42:35Z","abstract_excerpt":"The James-Stein estimator's dominance over maximum likelihood in terms of mean square error (MSE) has been one of the most celebrated results in modern statistics, suggesting that biased estimators can systematically outperform unbiased ones. We argue that this conclusion stems from using an inappropriate assessment criterion. Through simple simulations, we demonstrate that while James-Stein achieves lower MSE, it produces concerning behavior in practice: hypothesis tests based on James-Stein can have power below the significance level, exhibit severe asymmetry, and lead to conclusions that pr"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2412.08475","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2412.08475/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}