Past exam of the options I course of the University of Oxford / 2004 / O / O2 / i / Solution

For nondegenerate design let $S_{xx}={\sum }_i{x}_i^2>0$. Maximizing the Gaussian likelihood over the mean parameters is equivalent to minimizing ${\sum }_i(Y_i-\alpha -\beta x_i{)}^2$. Since ${\sum }_i{x}_i=0$, the normal equations separate:Its error is the linear combination $\hat{\beta }-\beta ={\sum }_i{x}_i{ϵ}_i/S_{xx}$. Independence and normality therefore giveIf every design point is zero, the slope is not identifiable and no such slope estimator can be inferred; the standard regression answer assumes the stated nondegeneracy.