3.1 Maximum likelihood estimates — in exponential families. Let (X, B) be a measurable space and {P θ , θ ∈ Θ} a measurable family of laws on (X, B), dominated by a σ-finite measure v. Let f (θ, x) be a jointly measurable version of the density (dP θ /dv)(x) by Theorem 1.3.3. For each x ∈ X, a maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) of θ is any θ ˆ = θ ˆ (x) such that f (ˆ θ, x) = sup{f (φ, x) : φ ∈ ...