{"paper":{"title":"Challenging the empirical mean and empirical variance: a deviation study","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["math.PR","stat.TH"],"primary_cat":"math.ST","authors_text":"Olivier Catoni","submitted_at":"2010-09-10T16:38:58Z","abstract_excerpt":"We present new M-estimators of the mean and variance of real valued random variables, based on PAC-Bayes bounds. We analyze the non-asymptotic minimax properties of the deviations of those estimators for sample distributions having either a bounded variance or a bounded variance and a bounded kurtosis. Under those weak hypotheses, allowing for heavy-tailed distributions, we show that the worst case deviations of the empirical mean are suboptimal. We prove indeed that for any confidence level, there is some M-estimator whose deviations are of the same order as the deviations of the empirical me"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1009.2048","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":""},"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"}