Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2011/ii/paper-1/5j/solution

Write for the single-observation score function. Differentiating the normalization of the probability density function gives
For discrete observations, use a sum instead. The allowed interchange of differentiation and integration is the usual regular-model assumption with common support. Adding these identities gives .
Let be the joint density. Because is an unbiased estimator with no explicit dependence on the parameter, differentiating gives
The scores are independent random variables with mean zero, so variance additivity for independent random variables gives . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality applied to the centred estimator and the score now gives the Cramér-Rao lower bound:
The denominator is the sample Fisher information. This bound concerns regular models with positive finite information; the preceding covariance identity explains why a small estimator variance requires a sufficiently informative score.

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