In statistics, an efficient estimator is an estimator that estimates the quantity of interest in some “best possible” manner. The notion of “best possible” relies upon the choice of a particular loss function — the function which quantifies the relative degree of undesirability of estimation errors of different magnitudes. The most common choice of the loss function is quadratic, resulting in the mean squared error criterion of optimality.
Read more about Efficient Estimator: Finite-sample Efficiency, Relative Efficiency, Asymptotic Efficiency
Famous quotes containing the word efficient:
“I make no secret of the fact that I would rather lie on a sofa than sweep beneath it. But you have to be efficient if you’re going to be lazy.”
—Shirley Conran (b. 1932)