Stein's unbiased risk estimate

In statistics, Stein's unbiased risk estimate (SURE) is an unbiased estimator of the mean-squared error of "a nearly arbitrary, nonlinear biased estimator."[1] In other words, it provides an indication of the accuracy of a given estimator. This is important since the true mean-squared error of an estimator is a function of the unknown parameter to be estimated, and thus cannot be determined exactly.

The technique is named after its discoverer, Charles Stein.[2]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference donoho95 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Stein, Charles M. (November 1981). "Estimation of the Mean of a Multivariate Normal Distribution". The Annals of Statistics. 9 (6): 1135–1151. doi:10.1214/aos/1176345632. JSTOR 2240405.