Unbiased sequential estimation of1/p: Settlement of a conjecture

Summary We present a complete characterization of the class of (unbounded) sampling plans providing unbiased (sequential) estimation of the reciprocal of the Bernoulli parameterp. This settles a conjecture set forth by Sinha and Sinha (1975,Ann. Inst. Statist. Math.,27, 245–258) regarding the nature of such plans as sought out by Gupta (1967,Ann. Inst. Statist. Math.,19, 413–416). Incidentally, a special type of sampling plans (termed ‘infinite-step generalizations of the inverse binomial plans’), studied by Sinha and Bhattacharyya (1982, Institute of Statistics Mimeo Series, Raleigh), are seen to play a central role in this study.