On the construction of Bayes minimax estimators

Abstract

Bayes estimation of the mean of a multivariate normal distribution is considered under quadratic loss. We show that, when particular spherical priors are used, the superharmonicity of the square root of the marginal density provides a viable method for constructing (possibly proper) Bayes (and admissible) minimax estimators. Examples illustrate the theory; most notably it is shown that a multivariate Student-$t$ prior yields a proper Bayes minimax estimate.