estimand

English

Etymology

Apparently of mid-20th century coinage from Latin aestimandum, gerundive of aestimo (“I value", "I estimate”).

Noun

estimand (plural estimands)

1. (statistics) that which is being estimated.
   • 1939, Charles F. Roos with Victor von Szeliski, “The Concept of Demand and Price Elasticity—The Dynamics of Automobile Demand”, in Journal of the American Statistical Association, volume 34, number 208, →DOI, page 656:

     Statistics needs a term like estimand to replace the lengthy phrase independent variable.

   • 1968, Frederick Mosteller with John W. Tukey, “Data Analysis--Including Statistics”, in Handbook of Social Psychology, 2nd edition, volume 2: Research Methods, page 106:

     We speak of the estimator's target as an estimand (as something to be estimated) rather than just as a parameter.

   • 2020 September, Jacqueline E. Rudolph, Catherine R. Lesko, Ashley I. Naimi, “Causal inference in the face of competing events”, in Current Epidemiology Reports, volume 7, number 3:

     When doing causal inference in the competing events setting, it is critical to first ascertain the relevant question and the causal estimand that best answers it, with the choice often being between estimands that do and do not eliminate competing events.

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