 Solution

A Bartlett correction improves calibration of a regular likelihood-ratio test statistic $W=2\{\ell (\hat{\theta })-\ell ({\hat{\theta }}_0)\}$, whose null limit is ${\chi }_q^2$ for $q$ tested restrictions. Ifthe corrected statistic is $\boxed{W_B=W/(1+b/n)}$. Its null mean is $q+O(n^{-2})$ and it is compared with the same limiting chi-squared distribution. The coefficient is model-specific, may involve nuisance parameters, and can be calculated from likelihood cumulants or a suitable null simulation; substitution must respect the asymptotic regime.

Under the regular higher-order likelihood expansions and identities that establish Bartlett correctability, this rescaling removes the leading $O(n^{-1})$ distributional error and can give $O(n^{-2})$ chi-square calibration error. Matching one moment by itself does not prove that assertion for an arbitrary statistic, and nonregular boundary or singular models need different treatment.

For illustration, testing a normal variance with unknown mean gives $W=n[-\log (U/n)+U/n-1]$ with $U\sim {\chi }_{n-1}^2$. The gamma logarithmic moment yieldsThus the Bartlett correction for a normal variance with unknown mean uses $b=11/6$, not the correction for the different known-mean model. This example also distinguishes the relative coefficient $b$ from the full divisor $1+b/n$.