Motivated by the first-order Pitman closeness of best asymptotically n
ormal estimators and some recent developments on higher-order asymptot
ic efficiency of estimators, a second-order asymptotic theory is devel
oped for comparison of estimators under the Pitman closeness criterion
, covering both the cases without and with nuisance parameters. The no
tion of second-order Pitman admissibility is also developed.