In this note we discuss the breakdown behavior of the maximum likelihood (ML) estimator in the logistic regression model. We formally prove that the ML-estimator never explodes to infinity, but rather breaks down to zero when adding severe outliers to a data set. An example confirms this behavior.

The minimum covariance determinant (MCD) scatter estimator is a highly robust estimator for the dispersion matrix of a multivariate, elliptically symmetric distribution. It is relatively fast to compute and intuitively appealing. In this note we derive its influence function and compute the...