A3.12 B3.15

Principles of Statistics | Part II, 2001

(i) Explain what is meant by a uniformly most powerful unbiased test of a null hypothesis against an alternative.

Let Y1,,YnY_{1}, \ldots, Y_{n} be independent, identically distributed N(μ,σ2)N\left(\mu, \sigma^{2}\right) random variables, with σ2\sigma^{2} known. Explain how to construct a uniformly most powerful unbiased size α\alpha test of the null hypothesis that μ=0\mu=0 against the alternative that μ0\mu \neq 0.

(ii) Outline briefly the Bayesian approach to hypothesis testing based on Bayes factors.

Let the distribution of Y1,,YnY_{1}, \ldots, Y_{n} be as in (i) above, and suppose we wish to test, as in (i), μ=0\mu=0 against the alternative μ0\mu \neq 0. Suppose we assume a N(0,τ2)N\left(0, \tau^{2}\right) prior for μ\mu under the alternative. Find the form of the Bayes factor BB, and show that, for fixed n,Bn, B \rightarrow \infty as τ\tau \rightarrow \infty.

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