Breakdown theory for bootstrap quantiles

Abstract

A general formula for computing the breakdown point in robustness for the $t$th bootstrap quantile of a statistic $T_n$ is obtained. The answer depends on $t$ and the breakdown point of $T_n$. Since the bootstrap quantiles are vital ingredients of bootstrap confidence intervals, the theory has implications pertaining to robustness of bootstrap confidence intervals. For certain $L$ and $M$ estimators, a robustification of bootstrap is suggested via the notion of Winsorization.