Stein-rule estimation of coefficients for 18 eastern hardwood cubic volume equations
A Stein-rule estimator, which shrinks least squares estimates of regression parameters toward their weighted average, was employed to estimate the coefficient in the constant form factor volume equation for 18 species simultaneously. The Stein-rule procedure was applied to ordinary least squares estimates and weighted least squares estimates. Simulation tests on independent validation data sets revealed that the Stein-rule estimates were biased, but predicted better than the corresponding least squares estimates. The Stein-rule procedures also yielded lower estimated mean square errors for the volume equation coefficient than the corresponding least squares procedure. Different methods of withdrawing sample data from the total sample available for each species revealed that the superiority of Stein-rule procedures over least squares decreased as the sample size increased and that the Stein-rule procedures were robust to unequal sample sizes, at least on the scale studied here.