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A Celebration of Statistics pp 369–375Cite as

Concepts of Robustness

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Abstract

A robust statistical procedure can be thought of as one which performs well over a range of situations and is able to stand up to a certain amount of abuse without breaking down. The development of the principal ideas of robustness is traced from about 1800 to the present, illustrating that scientists and statisticians have been concerned with the sensitivity of statistical procedures over this whole time and that some of the proposed solutions are closely related to robust estimates in use today. A brief overview of current research in robustness is given.

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Authors
  1. Christopher Field
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Imperial College of Science and Technology, SW7 2BZ, London, England

    Anthony C. Atkinson

  2. Carnegie-Mellon University, 15213, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Stephen E. Fienberg

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© 1985 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

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Field, C. (1985). Concepts of Robustness. In: Atkinson, A.C., Fienberg, S.E. (eds) A Celebration of Statistics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-8560-8_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-8560-8_15

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-8562-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-8560-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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