We investigate the choice of default priors for use with likelihood for Bayesian and frequentist inference. Such a prior is a density or relative density that weights an observed likelihood function, leading to the elimination of parameters that are not of interest and then a density-type...

We consider two hypothesis testing problems with N independent observations on a single m-vector, when mN, and the N observations on the random m-vector are independently and identically distributed as multivariate normal with mean vector μ and covariance matrix Σ, both unknown. In the first...

We consider inference on a vector-valued parameter of interest in a linear exponential family, in the presence of a finite-dimensional nuisance parameter. Based on higher-order asymptotic theory for likelihood, we propose a directional test whose <italic>p</italic>-value is computed using one-dimensional...

Higher-order approximations to p-values can be obtained from the loglikelihood function and a reparameterization that can be viewed as a canonical parameter in an exponential family approximation to the model. This approach clarifies the connection between Skovgaard (1996) and Fraser et al....

Discrete data, particularly count and contingency table data, are typically analysed by using methods that are accurate to first order, such as normal approximations for maximum likelihood estimators. By contrast continuous data can quite generally be analysed by using third-order procedures,...