Paper 1, Section II, H

Statistics | Part IB, 2019

State and prove the Neyman-Pearson lemma.

Suppose that X1,,XnX_{1}, \ldots, X_{n} are i.i.d. exp(λ)\exp (\lambda) random variables where λ\lambda is an unknown parameter. We wish to test the hypothesis H0:λ=λ0H_{0}: \lambda=\lambda_{0} against the hypothesis H1:λ=λ1H_{1}: \lambda=\lambda_{1} where λ1<λ0\lambda_{1}<\lambda_{0}.

(a) Find the critical region of the likelihood ratio test of size α\alpha in terms of the sample mean Xˉ\bar{X}.

(b) Define the power function of a hypothesis test and identify the power function in the setting described above in terms of the Γ(n,λ)\Gamma(n, \lambda) probability distribution function. [You may use without proof that X1++XnX_{1}+\cdots+X_{n} is distributed as a Γ(n,λ)\Gamma(n, \lambda) random variable.]

(c) Define what it means for a hypothesis test to be uniformly most powerful. Determine whether the likelihood ratio test considered above is uniformly most powerful for testing H0:λ=λ0H_{0}: \lambda=\lambda_{0} against H~1:λ<λ0\widetilde{H}_{1}: \lambda<\lambda_{0}.

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