Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/prelims/mathematics-iii/8/b/iii/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Oxford 2017 Prelims Mathematics III 8 b iii Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
No, not from the stated assumptions alone. The centered slope is a weighted sum,and the weighted errors need not be identically distributed. The ordinary central limit theorem therefore does not apply directly.
For a concrete counterexample, for every chooseThese satisfy all three centring and orthogonality assumptions, and both explanatory columns are nonzero. Let the errors be independent with Rademacher distribution, taking values with equal probability. Thenwhich takes values with probabilities for every . Increasing the sample size adds no information about this slope, and the standardized estimator does not approach a normal distribution.
A useful additional assumption for asymptotic normality of a weighted regression slope is that no single design value dominates:Under this condition and the given finite error variance, the Lindeberg-Feller central limit theorem yieldsjustifying the approximation for the slope as well.
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