We focus on mixtures of factor analyzers from the perspective of a method for model-based density estimation from high-dimensional data, and hence for the clustering of such data. This approach enables a normal mixture model to be fitted to a sample of n data points of dimension p, where p is...

(Magill, M., Quinzii, M., 2002. Capital market equilibrium with moral hazard. Journal of Mathematical Economics 38, 149-190) showed that, in a stockmarket economy with private information, the moral hazard problem may be resolved provided that a spanning overlap condition is satisfed. This...

Spatial characterization of non-Gaussian attributes in earth sciences and engineering commonly requires the estimation of their conditional distribution. The indicator and probability kriging approaches of current nonparametric geostatistics provide approximations for estimating conditional...

The importance of the rate of change of the pollution stock in determining the damage to the environment has been an issue of increasing concern in the literature. This paper uses a three-sector (economy, population and environment), non-linear, discrete time, calibrated model to examine...

We present a novel maximum-likelihood-based algorithm for estimating the distribution of alignment scores from the scores of unrelated sequences in a database search. Using a new method for measuring the accuracy of p-values, we show that our maximum-likelihood-based algorithm is more accurate...

This thesis studies local risk minimization, consistent interest-rate modeling, and their applications to life insurance.Part I considers local risk minimization, which is one possible approach to price and hedge claims in incomplete markets. In this first part, our two main results are...

When categorical data are misplaced into the wrong category, we say the data is affected by misclassification. This is common for data collection. It is well-known that naive estimators of category probabilities and coefficients for regression that ignore misclassification can be biased. In this...

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a multi-criteria data analysis methodology introduced by Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes in 1978. Since that time, it has proven to be a valuable analysis tool for strategic, policy, and operational decision problems. Its primary use is to conduct performance...

The first part of my thesis is concerned with estimation for longitudinal data using generalized semi-parametric mixed models and multilevel generalized linear mixed models for a binary response. Likelihood based inferences are hindered by the lack of a closed form representation. Consequently,...