Pooling multivariate data

In case it is doubtful whether two sets of data have the same mean vector, four estimation strategies have been developed for the target mean vector. In this situation, the estimates based on a preliminary test as well as on Stein-rule are advantageous. Two measures of relative efficiency are considered; one based on thequadratic loss function, and the other on the determinant of the mean square error matrix. A max-min rule for the size of the preliminary test of significance is presented. It is demonstrated that the shrinkage estimator dominates the classical estimator, whereas none of the shrinkage estimator and the preliminary test estimator dominate each other. The range in the parameter space where preliminary test estimator dominates shrinkage is investigated analytically and computationally. It is found that the shrinkage estimator outperform the preliminary test estimator except in a region around the null hypothesis. Moreover, for large values of a, the level of statistical significance, shrinkage estimator dominates the preliminary test estimator uniformly. The relative dominance of the estimators is presented.