P-star density for two exponential rates

ID: p-star-density-for-two-exponential-rates

For independent samples of size from exponential distributions with rates and , the maximum-likelihood estimators are and , where and are the respective sample sums. Their normalized P-star approximation is exact:
Indeed, and have independent gamma distributions with shapes and respective rates . The Jacobian determinant of their inverse transformation is , giving the displayed density. Alternatively the square root of the determinant of the fitted observed information is ; multiplying by the exponential of the fitted log-likelihood difference gives the same shape. Its normalizing constant in the P-star approximation is . Integrating over gives
so has the F-distribution with degrees of freedom .

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