A comparative study of tests for the difference of two Poisson means

H. K.T. Ng*, K. Gu, M. L. Tang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

18 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We investigate different test procedures for testing the difference of two Poisson means. Asymptotic tests, tests based on an approximate p-value method, and a likelihood ratio test are considered. Size and power performance of these tests are studied by means of Monte Carlo simulation under different settings. If one wants to control the actual significance level at or below the pre-chosen nominal level, tests based on approximate p-value method are the desirable candidates. If one allows tests whose actual significance levels may occasionally exceed the pre-chosen nominal level by an acceptable margin, asymptotic tests based on an unbiased estimate and constrained maximum likelihood estimate are reasonable alternatives. We illustrate these testing procedures with a breast cancer example.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3085-3099
Number of pages15
JournalComputational Statistics and Data Analysis
Volume51
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2007

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Statistics and Probability
  • Computational Mathematics
  • Computational Theory and Mathematics
  • Applied Mathematics

User-Defined Keywords

  • Asymptotic tests
  • Constrained maximum likelihood estimation
  • Level of significance
  • Likelihood ratio test
  • Monte Carlo simulation
  • Power

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