When a biased estimator wins

You estimate a signal's mean μ\mu from a single noisy reading XX with E[X]=μE[X]=\mu and Var⁡(X)=16\operatorname{Var}(X)=16. The true value happens to be μ=4\mu=4. Compare two estimators by mean-squared error: the unbiased μ^1=X\hat\mu_1=X, and the shrink-toward-zero μ^2=12X\hat\mu_2=\tfrac12 X. What is the MSE of the better estimator?

Show hints (2)+
  1. MSE=bias2+Var⁡\text{MSE}=\text{bias}^2+\operatorname{Var} - compute both for each estimator.
  2. Var⁡(12X)=14Var⁡(X)\operatorname{Var}(\tfrac12 X)=\tfrac14\operatorname{Var}(X); the shrunk one has MSE 4+44+4.

Answer

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8 (± 0.001)

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