An Introduction to the Bootstrap

An overview of the bootstrap and related methods for assessing statistical accuracy presented by the inventor of the bootstrap and an active researcher in the field.

Introduction The Accuracy of a Sample Mean Random Samples and Probabilities The Empirical Distribution Function and the Plug-In Principle Standard Errors and Estimated Standard Errors The Bootstrap Estimate of Standard Error Bootstrap Standard Errors: Some Examples More Complicated Data Structures Regression Models Estimates of Bias The Jackknife Confidence Intervals Based on Bootstrap Tables Confidence Intervals Based on Bootstrap Percentiles Better Bootstrap Confidence Intervals Permutation Tests Hypothesis Testing with the Bootstrap Cross-Validation and Other Estimates of Prediction Error Adaptive Estimation and Calibration Assessing the Error in Bootstrap Estimates A Geometrical Representation for the Bootstrap and Jackknife An Overview of Nonparametric and Parametric Inference Further Topics in Bootstrap Confidence Intervals Efficient Bootstrap Computations Approximate Likelihoods Bootstrap Bioequivalence Discussion and Further Topics Appendix: Sof tware for Bootstrap Computations References