A continuous empirical Bayes smoothing technique

Maritz (1966) and Lemon & Krutchkoff (1969) each describe discrete empirical Bayes smoothing techniques. These techniques essentially attempt to approximate the prior distribution function. Here a continuous smoothing technique which is based on a smooth and continuous approximation to the prior density function is presented. Results from a Monte Carlo study of the Poisson distribution are reported which show that the continuous smoothing technique has desirable small-sample properties. Some comparisons with discrete smoothing techniques are also made.