Importance Sampling Via the Estimated Sampler

Monte Carlo importance sampling for evaluating numerical integration is discussed. We consider a parametric family of sampling distributions and propose the use of the sampling distribution estimated by maximum likelihood. The proposed method of importance sampling using the estimated sampling distribution is shown to improve the asymptotic variance of the ordinary method using the true sampling distribution. The argument is closely related to the discussion of the paradox in Henmi & Eguchi (2004). We focus on a condition under which the estimated integration value obtained by the proposed method has asymptotic zero variance. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.