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We consider a fundamental open problem in parametric Bayesian theory, namely the validity of the formal Edgeworth expansion of the posterior density. While the study of valid asymptotic expansions for posterior distributions constitutes a rich literature, the validity of the formal Edgeworth expansion has not been rigorously established. Several authors have claimed connections of various posterior expansions with the classical Edgeworth expansion, or have simply assumed its validity. Our main result settles this open problem. We also prove a lemma concerning the order of posterior cumulants which is of independent interest in Bayesian parametric theory. The most relevant literature is synthesized and compared to the newly-derived Edgeworth expansions. Numerical investigations illustrate that our expansion has the behavior expected of an Edgeworth expansion, and that it has better performance than the other existing expansion which was previously claimed to be of Edgeworth-type.

This paper illustrates how to calculate the moments and cumulants of the two-stage Mann-Whitney statistic. These results may be used to calculate the asymptotic critical values of the two-stage Mann-Whitney test. In this paper, a large amount of deductions will be showed.

We obtain two theorems extending the use of a saddlepoint approximation to multiparameter problems for likelihood ratio-like statistics which allow their use in permutation and rank tests and could be used in bootstrap approximations. In the first, we show that in some cases when no density exists, the integral of the formal saddlepoint density over the set corresponding to large values of the likelihood ratio-like statistic approximates the true probability with relative error of order $1/n$. In the second, we give multivariate generalizations of the Lugannani--Rice and Barndorff-Nielsen or $r^*$ formulas for the approximations. These theorems are applied to obtain permutation tests based on the likelihood ratio-like statistics for the $k$ sample and the multivariate two-sample cases. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the high degree of accuracy, and these statistics are compared to the classical statistics in both cases., Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AOS945 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org)

We extend known saddlepoint tail probability approximations to multivariate cases, including multivariate conditional cases. Our approximation applies to both continuous and lattice variables, and requires the existence of a cumulant generating function. The method is applied to some examples, including a real data set from a case-control study of endometrial cancer. The method contains less terms and is easier to implement than existing methods, while showing an accuracy comparable to those methods., Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.3150/09-BEJ237 the Bernoulli (http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli/) by the International Statistical Institute/Bernoulli Society (http://isi.cbs.nl/BS/bshome.htm)

In the manuscript, we present a practical way to find the matching priors proposed by Welch & Peers (1963) and Peers (1965). We investigate the use of saddlepoint approximations combined with matching priors and obtain p-values of the test of an interest parameter in the presence of nuisance parameter. The advantage of our procedure is the flexibility of choosing different initial conditions so that one can adjust the performance of the test. Two examples have been studied, with coverage verified via Monte Carlo simulation. One relates to the ratio of two exponential means, and the other relates the logistic regression model. Particularly, we are interested in small sample settings., Comment: 17 pages, 2 tables

Consider a model parameterized by a scalar parameter of interest and a nuisance parameter vector. Inference about the parameter of interest may be based on the signed root of the likelihood ratio statistic R. The standard normal approximation to the conditional distribution of R typically has error of order O(n^{-1/2}), where n is the sample size. There are several modifications for R, which reduce the order of error in the approximations. In this paper, we mainly investigate Barndorff-Nielsen's modified directed likelihood ratio statistic, Severini's empirical adjustment, and DiCiccio and Martin's two modifications, involving the Bayesian approach and the conditional likelihood ratio statistic. For each modification, two formats were employed to approximate the conditional cumulative distribution function; these are Barndorff-Nielson formats and the Lugannani and Rice formats. All approximations were applied to inference on the ratio of means for two independent exponential random variables. We constructed one and two-sided hypotheses tests and used the actual sizes of the tests as the measurements of accuracy to compare those approximations., Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/074921707000000193 in the IMS Lecture Notes Monograph Series (http://www.imstat.org/publications/lecnotes.htm) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org)

Recently Liu and Wang derived the likelihood ratio test (LRT) statistic and its asymptotic distribution for testing equality of two multinomial distributions vs. the alternative that the second distribution is larger in terms of increasing convex order (ICX). ICX is less restrictive than stochastic order and is a notion that has found applications in insurance and actuarial science. In this paper we propose a new test for ICX. The new test has several advantages over the LRT and over any test procedure that depends on asymptotic theory for implementation. The advantages include the following: (i) The test is exact (non-asymptotic). (ii) The test is performed by conditioning on marginal column totals (and row totals in a full multinomial model for a $2\times C$ table). (iii) The test has desirable monotonicity properties. That is, the test is monotone in all practical directions (to be formally defined). (iv) The test can be carried out computationally with the aid of a computer program. (v) The test has good power properties among a wide variety of possible alternatives. (vi) The test is admissible. The basis of the new test is the directed chi-square methodology developed by Cohen, Madigan, and Sackrowitz., Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/074921706000000662 in the IMS Lecture Notes--Monograph Series (http://www.imstat.org/publications/lecnotes.htm) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org)