Inference on population size in binomial detectability models

R. M. Fewster and P. E. Jupp

Biometrika, 2009, vol. 96, issue 4, 805-820

Abstract: Many models for biological populations, including simple mark-recapture models and distance sampling models, involve a binomially distributed number, n, of observations x 1 , …, x n on members of a population of size N. Two popular estimators of (N, θ), where θ is a vector parameter, are the maximum likelihood estimator and the conditional maximum likelihood estimator based on the conditional distribution of x 1 , …, x n given n. We derive the large-N asymptotic distributions of and , and give formulae for the biases of and . We show that the difference is, remarkably, of order 1 and we give a simple formula for the leading part of this difference. Simulations indicate that in many cases this formula is very accurate and that confidence intervals based on the asymptotic distribution have excellent coverage. An extension to product-binomial models is given. Copyright 2009, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/biomet/asp051 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:biomet:v:96:y:2009:i:4:p:805-820

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Biometrika is currently edited by Paul Fearnhead

More articles in Biometrika from Biometrika Trust Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().