Econometricians make extensive use of various forms of "The Bootstrap", thanks to
Bradley (Brad) Efron's pioneering work.
I've posted about the history of the bootstrap previously -
e.g.,
here, and
here.
You probably know by now that Brad was awarded
The International Prize in Statistics last November - this was only the second time that this prize has been awarded. It's difficult to think of a more deserving recipient.
If you want to read an excellent account of Brad's work, and how the bootstrap came to be, I recommend the
2003 piece by Susan Holmes, Carl Morris, and Rob Tibshirani.
There are some fascinating snippets in this conversation/interview, including:
Efron: "One of the reasons I came to Stanford was
because of its humor magazine. I wrote a humor
column at Caltech, and I always wanted to write
for a humor magazine. Stanford had a great humor
magazine, The Chaparral. The first few months I was
there, the editor literally went crazy and had to be
hospitalized, and so I became editor. For one issue we
did a parody of Playboy and it went a little too far.
I was expelled from school, ..... I went
away for 6 months and then I came back. That was by
far the most famous I’ve ever been."
Referring to his seminal paper (Efron, 1979):
Tibshirani: "It was sent to the Annals. What kind of
reception did it get?"
Efron: "Rupert Miller was the editor of the Annals at
the time. I submitted what was the Rietz lecture, and it
got turned down. The associate editor, who will remain
nameless, said it that didn’t have any theorems in it.
So, I put some theorems in at the end and put a lot of
pressure on Rupert, and he finally published it."
I guess there's still hope for the rest of us!
References
Efron, B., 1979. Bootstrap methods: Another look at the jackknife. Annals of Statistics, 7, 1-26.
Holmes, S., C. Morris, & R. Tibshirani, 2003. Bradley Efron: A conversation with good friends.
Statistical Science, 18, 268-281.
© 2019, David E. Giles
