Nonnull asymptotic distributions of the LR, Wald, score and gradient statistics in generalized linear models with dispersion covariates

Abstract

The class of generalized linear models with dispersion covariates, which allows us to jointly model the mean and dispersion parameters, is a natural extension to the classical generalized linear models. In this paper, we derive the asymptotic expansions under a sequence of Pitman alternatives (up to order n −1/2) for the nonnull distribution functions of the likelihood ratio, Wald, Rao score and gradient statistics in this class of models. The asymptotic distributions of these statistics are obtained for testing a subset of regression parameters and for testing a subset of dispersion parameters. Based on these nonnull asymptotic expansions, the power of all four tests, which are equivalent to first order, are compared. Furthermore, we consider Monte Carlo simulations in order to compare the finite-sample performance of these tests in this class of models. We present two empirical applications to two real data sets for illustrative purposes.