Improved statistical inference for the two-parameter Birnbaum-Saunders distribution

We develop nearly unbiased estimators for the two-parameter Birnbaum–Saunders distribution [Birnbaum, Z.W., Saunders, S.C., 1969a. A new family of life distributions. J. Appl. Probab. 6, 319–327], which is commonly used in reliability studies. We derive modified maximum likelihood estimators that are bias-free to second order. We also consider bootstrap-based bias correction. The numerical evidence we present favors three bias-adjusted estimators. Different interval estimation strategies are evaluated. Additionally, we derive a Bartlett correction that improves the finite-sample performance of the likelihood ratio test in finite samples. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.