What is maximum likelihood estimation?

What is maximum likelihood estimation?

Approach: Explain principle of maximizing likelihood function.

Method for estimating parameters of statistical model. Given data and model with parameters θ, find θ that maximizes likelihood function L(θ|data) = P(data|θ). Often maximize log-likelihood for simplicity.

Follow-up: What are its asymptotic properties?

Key concepts: likelihood function, optimization, parameter estimation.