Point and Confidence Estimation of a Common Mean and Recovery of Interblock Information

Abstract

Consider the problem of estimating a common mean of two independent normal distributions, each with unknown variances. Note that the problem of recovery of interblock information in balanced incomplete blocks designs is such a problem. Suppose a random sample of size $m$ is drawn from the first population and a random sample of size $n$ is drawn from the second population. We first show that the sample mean of the first population can be improved on (with an unbiased estimator having smaller variance), provided $m \geqq 2$ and $n \geqq 3$. The method of proof is applicable to the recovery of information problem. For that problem, it is shown that interblock information could be used provided $b \geqq 4$. Furthermore for the case $b = t = 3$, or in the common mean problem, where $n = 2$, it is shown that the prescribed estimator does not offer improvement. Some of the results for the common mean problem are extended to the case of $K$ means. Results similar to some of those obtained for point estimation, are also obtained for confidence estimation.