Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2019 / ii / Paper 3 / 28J / a / Solution

Let $S_n={\sum }_{i=1}^n{X}_i$. The log-likelihood iswith score function $n/\theta -S_n$ and second derivative $-n/{\theta }^2<0$. The unique maximum-likelihood estimator is thereforeFor an exponential distribution of rate $\theta$,The central limit theorem givesApplying the delta method to $h(x)=1/x$, for which $h^{\prime }(1/\theta )=-{\theta }^2$, yields the exponential-rate maximum-likelihood estimator limit