Non-Regular Example of Confidence-Interval Construction

Abstract

When dealing with a regular (fixed-support) one-parameter distribution, the corresponding maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE) is, to a good approximation, normally distributed. But, when the support boundaries are functions of the parameter, finding good approximation for the sampling distribution of MLE (needed to construct an accurate confidence interval for the parameter’s true value) may get very challenging. We demonstrate the nature of this problem, and show how to deal with it, by a detailed study of a specific situation. We also indicate several possible ways to bypass MLE by proposing alternate estimators; these, having relatively simple sampling distributions, then make constructing a confidence interval rather routine.