There are so many possible answers and the subject is so large! <p>When the parametric family of distributions is some exponential family, there is this recent and very elegant paper: - [Consistency under Sampling of Exponential Random Graph Models][1] Although it is focused on studying exponential random graph models, which are commonly used in modeling social networks (and other network models), the framework is quite general. **Edit 1:** If the question is about which parametric families are closed under taking mixtures, then the following references are relevant - [Misiewicz et. al. (2005). Classes of measures closed under mixing and convolution. Weak stability][2] - [Teicher (1960). On the Mixture of Distributions][3] [1]: http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3054 [2]: http://webmail.impan.gov.pl/cgi-bin/sm/pdf?sm167-3-01 [3]: http://projecteuclid.org/DPubS?service=UI&version=1.0&verb=Display&handle=euclid.aoms/1177705987