Generalized likelihood-ratio test

A generalized likelihood-ratio test compares the likelihood maximized under the null with the likelihood maximized over the full parameter space.

Two equally numerous groups of independent counts with Poisson distributions have areas $a$ and $2a$. Under common density their group means are in ratio $1:2$. With group sums $S_1,S_2$ and $T=S_1+S_2$, the maximized alternative-to-null likelihood ratio isUse zero-count limits and $\Lambda =1$ when $T=0$. The regular Wilks theorem calibration has one degree of freedom. Exactly conditioning on $T$ gives $S_1\sim \mathrm{Binomial}(T,1/3)$ under the null; this supports small-count testing without the large-sample approximation.

The deviance of a fitted generalized linear model isFor regular nested models, the deviance reduction $D_0-D_1=2({\ell }_1-{\ell }_0)$ is asymptotically chi-squared with degrees of freedom equal to the difference in fitted dimensions.

The unscaled residual deviance of an exponential dispersion family compares its fitted mean with the saturated statistical model at a common dispersion parameter. Its normalization removes the factor $1/\varphi$ in the log-likelihood. In Poisson regression and binomial regression, $\varphi =1$, so it is twice the saturated-minus-fitted log-likelihood. Under suitable regularity, $D/\varphi$ has approximately a chi-squared distribution with the residual degrees of freedom; this is not an automatic accurate approximation for sparse responses. Nested deviance reductions with estimated dispersion lead to approximate F-tests after scaling by the dispersion estimate.

For independent unit-variance samples, testing equal means uses $Z=\sqrt{mn/(m+n)}(\bar{X}-\bar{Y})$ and rejects for large $|Z|$.

Likelihood-ratio tests of different null subspaces can have crossing rejection regions; comparing their quadratic-form geometry exhibits observations accepted by one and rejected by another.