Skip Navigation

Biometrika 1974 61(2):393-399; doi:10.1093/biomet/61.2.393
© 1974 by Biometrika Trust
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by BECKER, N.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

On parametric estimation for mortal branching processes

NIELS BECKER

Department of Mathematics, La Trobe University Melbourne

If the offspring distribution in a branching process is a power series distribution, then, conditional on extinction, the total number of descendants for the process also has a power series distribution. For this case the estimation of the parameter and of the mean of the offspring distribution is considered, using the method of maximum likelihood and minimum variance unbiasedness. The minimum variance unbiased estimator for the variance of the estimator of the parameter is also given. The results are applied to smallpox data for Europe.

Key Words: Age-dependent branching process • Borel-Tanner distribution • Epidemic model • Information • Maximum likelihood estimation • Minimum variance unbiased estimation • Power series distribution • Smallpox in Europe • Sufficient statistic


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Proc R Soc BHome page
N. Arinaminpathy and A. R. McLean
Evolution and emergence of novel human infections
Proc R Soc B, November 22, 2009; 276(1675): 3937 - 3943.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.