Paper 4, Section II, J

Statistical Modelling
Part II, 2013

Let f0f_{0} be a probability density function, with cumulant generating function KK. Define what it means for a random variable YY to have a model function of exponential dispersion family form, generated by f0f_{0}.

A random variable YY is said to have an inverse Gaussian distribution, with parameters ϕ\phi and λ\lambda (both positive), if its density function is

f(y;ϕ,λ)=λ2πy3eλϕexp{12(λy+ϕy)}(y>0)f(y ; \phi, \lambda)=\frac{\sqrt{\lambda}}{\sqrt{2 \pi y^{3}}} e^{\sqrt{\lambda \phi}} \exp \left\{-\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\lambda}{y}+\phi y\right)\right\} \quad(y>0)

Show that the family of all inverse Gaussian distributions for YY is of exponential dispersion family form. Deduce directly the corresponding expressions for E(Y)E(Y) and Var(Y)\operatorname{Var}(Y) in terms of ϕ\phi and λ\lambda. What are the corresponding canonical link function and variance function?

Consider a generalized linear model, MM, for independent variables Yi(i=1,,n)Y_{i}(i=1, \ldots, n), whose random component is defined by the inverse Gaussian distribution with link function g(μ)=log(μ):g(\mu)=\log (\mu): thus g(μi)=xiTβg\left(\mu_{i}\right)=x_{i}^{\mathrm{T}} \beta, where β=(β1,,βp)T\beta=\left(\beta_{1}, \ldots, \beta_{p}\right)^{\mathrm{T}} is the vector of unknown regression coefficients and xi=(xi1,,xip)Tx_{i}=\left(x_{i 1}, \ldots, x_{i p}\right)^{\mathrm{T}} is the vector of known values of the explanatory variables for the ith i^{\text {th }}observation. The vectors xi(i=1,,n)x_{i}(i=1, \ldots, n) are linearly independent. Assuming that the dispersion parameter is known, obtain expressions for the score function and Fisher information matrix for β\beta. Explain how these can be used to compute the maximum likelihood estimate β^\widehat{\beta} of β\beta.