Strong uniform consistency results of the weighted average of conditional artificial data points

Abstract

In this paper, we study strong uniform consistency of a weighted average of artificial data points. This is especially useful when information is incomplete (censored data, missing data …). In this case, reconstruction of the information is often achieved nonparametrically by using a local preservation of mean criterion for which the corresponding mean is estimated by a weighted average of new data points. The present approach enlarges the possible scope for applications beyond just the incomplete data context and can also be useful to treat the estimation of the conditional mean of specific functions of complete data points. As a consequence, we establish the strong uniform consistency of the Nadaraya–Watson [Nadaraya, E.A., 1964. On estimating regression. Theory Probab. Appl. 9, 141–142; Watson, G.S., 1964. Smooth regression analysis. Sankhyā Ser. A 26, 359–372] estimator for general transformations of the data points. This result generalizes the one of Härdle et al. [Strong uniform consistency rates for estimators of conditional functionals. Ann. Statist. 16, 1428–1449]. In addition, the strong uniform consistency of a modulus of continuity will be obtained for this estimator. Applications of those two results are detailed for some popular estimators.