## The Annals of Mathematical Statistics

### Conditional Expectation and Unbiased Sequential Estimation

David Blackwell

#### Abstract

It is shown that $E\lbrack f(x) E(y \mid x)\rbrack = E(fy)$ whenever $E(fy)$ is finite, and that $\sigma^2E(y \mid x) \leq\le \sigma^2y$, where $E(y \mid x)$ denotes the conditional expectation of $y$ with respect to $x$. These results imply that whenever there is a sufficient statistic $u$ and an unbiased estimate $t$, not a function of $u$ only, for a parameter $\theta$, the function $E(t \mid u)$, which is a function of $u$ only, is an unbiased estimate for $\theta$ with a variance smaller than that of $t$. A sequential unbiased estimate for a parameter is obtained, such that when the sequential test terminates after $i$ observations, the estimate is a function of a sufficient statistic for the parameter with respect to these observations. A special case of this estimate is that obtained by Girshick, Mosteller, and Savage [4] for the parameter of a binomial distribution.

#### Article information

Source
Ann. Math. Statist. Volume 18, Number 1 (1947), 105-110.

Dates
First available in Project Euclid: 28 April 2007

Permanent link to this document
http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aoms/1177730497

Digital Object Identifier
doi:10.1214/aoms/1177730497

Mathematical Reviews number (MathSciNet)
MR19903

Zentralblatt MATH identifier
0033.07603

JSTOR
links.jstor.org

#### Citation

Blackwell, David. Conditional Expectation and Unbiased Sequential Estimation. Ann. Math. Statist. 18 (1947), no. 1, 105--110. doi:10.1214/aoms/1177730497. http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aoms/1177730497.