Improving the Relative Error of Estimation

A condition often imposed on estimated models is that they produce estimates or predictions that have a small average (absolute) relative error.Usually, however, the relative error criterion is not used anywhere in the estimation process, but only to evaluate a model estimated by other means.A procedure is given for reducing the relative error of a model fit by any method.The procedure adjusts the original model by a multiplicative factor that is easily calculated from the raw data and the model's estimates of that data.I show that the relative error for the adjusted model never exceeds that of the original model.