A comparison of the accuracy of saddlepoint conditional cumulative distribution function approximations

Consider a model parameterized by a scalar parameter of interest and a nuisance parameter vector. Inference about the parameter of interest may be based on the signed root of the likelihood ratio statistic R. The standard normal approximation to the conditional distribution of R typically has error of order O(n−1/2), where n is the sample size. There are several modifications for R, which reduce the order of error in the approximations. In this paper, we mainly investigate Barndorff-Nielsen’s modified directed likelihood ratio statistic, Severini’s empirical adjustment, and DiCiccio and Martin’s two modifications, involving the Bayesian approach and the conditional likelihood ratio statistic. For each modification, two formats were employed to approximate the conditional cumulative distribution function; these are Barndorff-Nielson formats and the Lugannani and Rice formats. All approximations were applied to inference on the ratio of means for two independent exponential random variables. We constructed one and two-sided hypotheses tests and used the actual sizes of the tests as the measurements of accuracy to compare those approximations.