Nemirovski's Inequalities Revisited

Abstract

An important tool for statistical research are moment inequalities for sums of independent random vectors. Nemirovski and coworkers (1983, 2000) derived one particular type of such inequalities: For certain Banach spaces $(\B,\|\cdot\|)$ there exists a constant $K = K(\B,\|\cdot\|)$ such that for arbitrary independent and centered random vectors $X_1, X_2, ..., X_n \in \B$, their sum $S_n$ satisfies the inequality $ E \|S_n \|^2 \le K \sum_{i=1}^n E \|X_i\|^2$. We present and compare three different approaches to obtain such inequalities: Nemirovski's results are based on deterministic inequalities for norms. Another possible vehicle are type and cotype inequalities, a tool from probability theory on Banach spaces. Finally, we use a truncation argument plus Bernstein's inequality to obtain another version of the moment inequality above. Interestingly, all three approaches have their own merits.

23 pages, 1 figure. Revision for American Mathematical Monthly, February 2009. Mark Veraar added as co-author