Surely this depends heavily on "the population"; which I think must be finite, or at any rate bounded, for the question even to make sense. (What's the population maximum of a normal distribution? Infinity, I should think -- which is unlikely to be well estimated by any sample value.) Perhaps there were some (implied?) conditions, or constraints, in the context of the original question? -- Don.
On Fri, 19 Mar 2004, Kaplon, Howard wrote: > A student asked a colleague of mine if the sample maximum was the best > point estimator of the population maximum. While I was tempted to say > yes, the idea that this must surely be a biased under-estimator came > to mind. Can someone answer the problem and point me to a source? ------------------------------------------------------------ Donald F. Burrill [EMAIL PROTECTED] 56 Sebbins Pond Drive, Bedford, NH 03110 (603) 626-0816 . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
