Composite indicators are regularly used for benchmarking countries' performance, but equally often stir controversies about the unavoidable subjectivity that is connected with their construction. Data Envelopment Analysis helps to overcome some key limitations, viz., the undesirable dependence...

Linear discriminant analysis for multiple groups is typically carried out using Fisher's method. This method relies on the sample averages and covariance matrices computed from the different groups constituting the training sample. Since sample averages and covariance matrices are not robust, it...

During metamodel-based optimization three types of implicit errors are typically made.The first error is the simulation-model error, which is defined by the difference between reality and the computer model.The second error is the metamodel error, which is defined by the difference between the...

In this note we consider several versions of the bootstrap and argue that it is helpful in explaining and thinking about such procedures to use an explicit representation of the random resampling process. To illustrate the point we give such explicit representations and use them to produce some...

A social choice function is robustly implementable if there is a mechanism under which the process of iteratively eliminating strictly dominated messages leads to outcomes that agree with the social choice at every type profile. In an interdependent value environment, we identify a strict...

In time series regressions with nonparametrically autocorrelated errors, it is now standard empirical practice to use kernel-based robust standard errors that involve some smoothing function over the sample autocorrelations. The underlying smoothing parameter b, which can be defined as the ratio...

Standard methods for optimal allocation of shares in a financial portfolio are determined by second-order conditions which are very sensitive to outliers. The well-known Markowitz approach, which is based on the input of a mean vector and a covariance matrix, seems to provide questionable...