Solved – Introduction to statistics for mathematicians

references

What is a good introduction to statistics for a mathematician who is already well-versed in probability? I have two distinct motivations for asking, which may well lead to different suggestions:

  1. I'd like to better understand the statistics motivation behind many problems considered by probabilists.

  2. I'd like to know how to better interpret the results of Monte Carlo simulations which I sometimes do to form mathematical conjectures.

I'm open to the possibility that the best way to go is not to look for something like "Statistics for Probabilists" and just go to a more introductory source.

Best Answer

As you said, it's not necessarily the case that a mathematician may want a rigorous book. Maybe the goal is to get some intuition of the concepts quickly, and then fill in the details. I recommend two books from CMU professors, both published by Springer: "All of Statistics" by Larry Wasserman is quick and informal. "Theory of Statistics" by Mark Schervish is rigorous and relatively complete. It has decision theory, finite sample, some asymptotics and sequential analysis.

Added 7/28/10: There is one additional reference that is orthogonal to the other two: very rigorous, focused on learning theory, and short. It's by Smale (Steven Smale!) and Cucker, "On the Mathematical Foundations of Learning". Not easy read, but the best crash course on the theory.