Higher order asymptotic theory for normalizing transformations of maximum likelihood estimators

Suppose thatX _n =(X ₁,...X _n) is a collection ofm-dimensional random vectorsX _i forming a stochastic process with a parameter . Let be the MLE of . We assume that a transformationA( ) of has thek-thorder Edgeworth expansion (k=2,3). IfA extinguishes the terms in the Edgeworth expansion up tok-th-order (k2), then we say thatA is thek-th-order normalizing transformation. In this paper, we elucidate thek-th-order asymptotics of the normalizing transformations. Some conditions forA to be thek-th-order normalizing transformation will be given. Our results are very general, and can be applied to the i.i.d. case, multivariate analysis and time series analysis. Finally, we also study thek-th-order asymptotics of a modified signed log likelihood ratio in terms of the Edgeworth approximation.Research supported by the Office of Naval Research Contract N00014-91-J-1020.