This book discusses the fitting of parametric statistical models to data samples. Emphasis is placed on: (i) how to recognize situations where the problem is non-standard when parameter estimates behave unusually, and (ii) the use of parametric bootstrap resampling methods in analyzing such problems.

A frequentist likelihood-based viewpoint is adopted, for which there is a well-established and very practical theory. The standard situation is where certain widely applicable regularity conditions hold. However, there are many apparently innocuous situations where standard theory breaks...