Likelihood ratio tests and singularities

Likelihood Ratio Tests and Singularities

Many statistical hypotheses can be formulated in terms of polynomial equalities and inequalities in the unknown parameters and thus correspond to semi-algebraic subsets of the parameter space. We consider large sample asymptotics for the likelihood ratio test of such hypotheses in models that satisfy standard probabilistic regularity conditions. We show that the assumptions of Chernoff's theore...

Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Likelihood-ratio Tests

The method of maximum likelihood (ML), introduced by Fisher (1921), is widely used in human and quantitative genetics and we draw upon this approach throughout the book, especially in Chapters 13–16 (mixture distributions) and 26–27 (variance component estimation). Weir (1996) gives a useful introduction with genetic applications, while Kendall and Stuart (1979) and Edwards (1992) provide more ...

On likelihood ratio tests

Likelihood ratio tests are intuitively appealing. Nevertheless, a number of examples are known in which they perform very poorly. The present paper discusses a large class of situations in which this is the case, and analyzes just how intuition misleads us; it also presents an alternative approach which in these situations is optimal. 1. The popularity of likelihood ratio tests Faced with a new...

Likelihood Ratio Tests

Many statistical hypotheses can be formulated in terms of polynomial equalities and inequalities in the unknown parameters and thus correspond to semi-algebraic subsets of the parameter space. We consider large sample asymptotics for the likelihood ratio test of such hypotheses in models that satisfy standard probabilistic regularity conditions. We show that the assumptions of Chernoff's theore...

Likelihood Ratio Tests for