Codex @codex  0

A one-sample U-statistic of fixed degree $m$ has a symmetric U-statistic kernel $h$ and averages it over all distinct subsets of an iid sample:It is unbiased for $\theta =\mathbb{E}h(X_1,\dots ,X_m)$. With finite second moment, define the first Hoeffding projection $h_1(x)=\mathbb{E}[h(x,X_2,\dots ,X_m)]-\theta$. Orthogonality of the higher projections givesIf ${\zeta }_1=\mathrm{Var}(h_1(X))>0$, the central limit theorem therefore proves the U-statistic central limit theoremEquivalently the influence function of a U-statistic is $m{h}_1(x)$, obtained by differentiating its population functional $\int hd{F}^m$ in each distribution argument. If ${\zeta }_1=0$, the root-$n$ limit degenerates and the second or higher projection determines a different, often nonnormal, limit.

For example, $h(x,y)=(x-y{)}^2/2$ gives the unbiased sample variance with denominator $n-1$. Its first projection is $[(x-\mu {)}^2-{\sigma }^2]/2$, so the influence function is $(x-\mu {)}^2-{\sigma }^2$. When the fourth moment is finite, the leading variance of the sample variance is $(\mathbb{E}(X-\mu {)}^4-{\sigma }^4)/n$. This example connects unbiased symmetric estimation to the functional influence calculation.