Consistency of Maximum Likelihood and Pseudo-Likelihood Estimators for Gibbs Distributions

We prove that the Maximum Likelihood and Pseudo-likelihood estimators for the parameters of Gibbs distributions (equivalently Markov Random Fields) over ℤd, d≥l, are consistent even at points of “first” or “higher-order” phase transitions. The distributions are parametrized by points in a finite-dimensional Euclidean space ℝm, m≥l, and the single spin state space is either a finite set or a compact metric space. Also, the underlying interactions need not be of finite range.

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