Review Articles

A review of distributed statistical inference

Yuan Gao ,

School of Statistics and Key Laboratory of Advanced Theory and Application in Statistics and Data Science – MOE, East China Normal University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

Weidong Liu ,

School of Mathematical Sciences and Key Lab of Articial Intelligence – MOE, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

Hansheng Wang ,

Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Xiaozhou Wang ,

School of Statistics and Key Laboratory of Advanced Theory and Application in Statistics and Data Science – MOE, East China Normal University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

Yibo Yan ,

School of Statistics and Key Laboratory of Advanced Theory and Application in Statistics and Data Science – MOE, East China Normal University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

Riquan Zhang

School of Statistics and Key Laboratory of Advanced Theory and Application in Statistics and Data Science – MOE, East China Normal University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

Pages 89-99 | Received 02 Sep. 2020, Accepted 01 Aug. 2021, Published online: 13 Sep. 2021,
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The rapid emergence of massive datasets in various fields poses a serious challenge to traditional statistical methods. Meanwhile, it provides opportunities for researchers to develop novel algorithms. Inspired by the idea of divide-and-conquer, various distributed frameworks for statistical estimation and inference have been proposed. They were developed to deal with large-scale statistical optimization problems. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive review for related literature. It includes parametric models, nonparametric models, and other frequently used models. Their key ideas and theoretical properties are summarized. The trade-off between communication cost and estimate precision together with other concerns are discussed.