STATISTICS, cilt.44, sa.3, ss.275-290, 2010 (SCI-Expanded)
We give a novel estimator of Mahalanobis distance D2 between two non-normal populations. We show that it is enormously more efficient and robust than the traditional estimator based on least squares estimators. We give a test statistic for testing that D2=0 and study its power and robustness properties.