Poisson slope information after eliminating an intercept ($\mathrm{Var}(\hat{\beta })\approx [{\sum }_i{\mu }_i(x_i-{\bar{x}}_{\mu }{)}^2{]}^{-1}$)

In Poisson regression with log means $a+\beta x_i$, the Fisher information matrix is $\left(\begin{array}{cc}{S}_0& S_1\\ S_1& S_2\end{array}\right)$, where $S_j={\sum }_i{x}_i^j{\mu }_i$. Inverting this matrix gives slope variance $S_0/(S_0{S}_2-S_1^2)$. Writing ${\bar{x}}_{\mu }=S_1/S_0$ reduces it to the displayed reciprocal weighted sum of squares. Thus a common intercept consumes information about the overall rate, while slope information comes from the spread of the covariates under the mean-count weights. Constant covariates make the two parameters unidentifiable.