Classroom note: Estimation of the cross-product of two mean vectors

Abstract

The problem of estimating the cross-product of two mean vectors in three-dimensional Euclidian space is considered. Two ‘natural’ estimators are developed, both of which turn out to be biased. A third, unbiased estimator, resulting from a jackknife procedure, is also investigated. It is shown that, under normality, the latter is best among all the unbiased estimators of this quantity.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the referee for some useful suggestions. Special thanks go to Michael Barowski for his support in computer programming.

Notes

*thinsp;The author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Götz Trenkler*

*thinsp;The author to whom correspondence should be addressed.