On the inadmssibelity of ridge estimator in a linear model

Abstract

The necessary and sufficient conditions for the inadmissibility of the ridge regression is discussed under two different criteria, namely, average loss and Pitman nearness. Although the two criteria are very different, same conclusions are obtained. The loss functions considered in this article are th likelihood loss function and the Mahalanobis loss function. The two loss functions are motivated from the point of view of classification of two normal populations. Under the Mahalanobis loss it is demonstrated that the ridge regression is always inadmissible as long as the errors are assumed to be symmetrically distributed about the origin.

Keywords:

• Loss function
• mean squared error
• ordinary least squares estimator
• Pitman nearness
• ridge estimator