Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2006 / iii / Paper 47 / 4 / a

The nonparametric bootstrap replaces the unknown sampling law by the empirical distributionGenerate $B$ independent bootstrap samples, each containing $n$ independent draws with replacement from that law. Recompute the original estimator in each sample, obtaining ${\hat{\theta }}_1^{\ast },\dots ,{\hat{\theta }}_B^{\ast }$. With ${\overline{\theta }}^{\ast }=B^{-1}{\sum }_b{\hat{\theta }}_b^{\ast }$, the bootstrap standard error estimate isThis estimates the conditional bootstrap standard deviation, which approximates the estimator's sampling standard deviation when the bootstrap is consistent. Dividing this expression by $\sqrt{B}$ would instead estimate the Monte Carlo error in the bootstrap mean, a different quantity.

For distinct original observations, each resample is an ordered index sequence with one of $n^n$ equally likely values. It contains no repeats precisely when it is a permutation of all $n$ original indices, giving $n!$ possibilities. HenceThe distinctness assumption is needed to equate repeated values with repeated indices.