In certain cases the distribution of the normalized maximumof a sample can be better approximated by a sequence ofdifferent extreme value distributions than by the final one. Weshow that these cases are rather restricted and that the possibleimprovement is not spectacular.

Internet auctions attract numerous agents, but only a few become active bidders. A major difficulty in the structural analysis of internet auctions is that the number of potential bidders is unknown. Under the independent private value paradigm (IPVP)the valuations of the active bidders form a...

We are interested in the derivation of the distributional properties of a weighted log-excesses estimator of a positive tail index "&ggr;". One of the main objectives of such an estimator is the accommodation of the dominant component of asymptotic bias, together with the maintenance of the...