# Variance of sample mean of bootstrap sample

Let $X_{1},...,X_{n}$be distinct observations (no ties). Let $X_{1}^{*},...,X_{n}^{*}$denote a bootstrap sample (a sample from the empirical CDF) and let $\bar{X}_{n}^{*}=\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^{n}X_{i}^{*}$. Find $E(\bar{X}_{n}^{*})$ and $\mathrm{Var}(\bar{X}_{n}^{*})$.

What I have so far is that $X_{i}^{*}$ is $X_{1},...,X_{n}$ each with probability $\frac{1}{n}$ so $$E(X_{i}^{*})=\frac{1}{n}E(X_{1})+...+\frac{1}{n}E(X_{n})=\frac{n\mu}{n}=\mu$$ and $$E(X_{i}^{*2})=\frac{1}{n}E(X_{1}^{2})+...+\frac{1}{n}E(X_{n}^{2})=\frac{n(\mu^{2}+\sigma^{2})}{n}=\mu^{2}+\sigma^{2}\>,$$ which gives $$\mathrm{Var}(X_{i}^{*})=E(X_{i}^{*2})-(E(X_{i}^{*}))^{2}=\mu^{2}+\sigma^{2}-\mu^{2}=\sigma^{2} \>.$$

Then, $$E(\bar{X}_{n}^{*})=E(\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^{n}X_{i}^{*})=\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^{n}E(X_{i}^{*})=\frac{n\mu}{n}=\mu$$ and $$\mathrm{Var}(\bar{X}_{n}^{*})=\mathrm{Var}(\frac{1}{n}\sum_{i=1}^{n}X_{i}^{*})=\frac{1}{n^{2}}\sum_{i=1}^{n}\mathrm{Var}(X_{i}^{*})$$ since the $X_{i}^{*}$'s are independent. This gives $\mathrm{Var}(\bar{X}_{n}^{*})=\frac{n\sigma^{2}}{n^{2}}=\frac{\sigma^{2}}{n}$

However, I don't get the same answer when I condition on $X_{1},\ldots,X_{n}$ and use the formula for conditional variance: $$\mathrm{Var}(\bar{X}_{n}^{*})=E(\mathrm{Var}(\bar{X}_{n}^{*}|X_{1},...,X_{n}))+\mathrm{Var}(E(\bar{X}_{n}^{*}|X_{1},\ldots,X_{n})) \>.$$

$E(\bar{X}_{n}^{*}|X_{1},\ldots,X_{n})=\bar{X}_{n}$ and $\mathrm{Var}(\bar{X}_{n}^{*}|X_{1},\ldots,X_{n})=\frac{1}{n^{2}}(\sum X_{i}^{2}-n\bar{X}_{n}^{2})$ so plugging these into the formula above gives (after some algebra) $\mathrm{Var}(\bar{X}_{n}^{*})=\frac{(2n-1)\sigma^{2}}{n^{2}}$.

Am I doing something wrong here? My feeling is that I am not using the conditional variance formula correctly but I'm not sure. Any help would be appreciated.

• Maybe your V(E(X|X1..Xn)) is not correctly calculated. The answer should be the same. – user35367 Nov 27 '13 at 2:17
• You're probably right--but this answer doesn't seem terribly informative. Perhaps you could point to which part is not correct? – whuber Nov 27 '13 at 2:21

The correct answer is $\frac{n-1}{n^2}S^2$. The solution is #4 here