Resampling, Validating, Describing, and Simplifying the Model

Abstract

When one assumes that a random variable Y has a certain population distribution, one can use simulation or analytic derivations to study how a statistical estimator computed from samples from this distribution behaves. For example, when Y has a log-normal distribution, the variance of the sample median for a sample of size n from that distribution can be derived analytically. Alternatively, one can simulate 500 samples of size n from the log-normal distribution, compute the sample median for each sample, and then compute the sample variance of the 500 sample medians. Either case requires knowledge of the population distribution function.