Efficiency of Multivariate Control Variates in Monte Carlo Simulation

Reuven Y. Rubinstein and Ruth Marcus
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Reuven Y. Rubinstein: Technion, Istrael Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
Ruth Marcus: Agricultural Research Organization, Beth-Dagan, Israel

Operations Research, 1985, vol. 33, issue 3, 661-677

Abstract: This paper considers some statistical aspects of applying control variates to achieve variance reduction in the estimation of a vector of response variables in Monte Carlo simulation. It gives a result that quantifies the loss in variance reduction caused by the estimation of the optimal control matrix. For the one-dimensional case, we derive analytically the optimal size of the vector of control variates under specific assumptions on the covariance matrix. For the multidimensional case, our numerical results show that good variance reduction is achieved when the number of control variates is relatively small (approximately of the same order as the number of unknown parameters). Finally, we give some recommendations for future research.

Keywords: 767 control variates; 796 variance reduction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1985
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:oropre:v:33:y:1985:i:3:p:661-677

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