This paper addresses the problem of inference for a
multinomial regression model in the presence of likelihood monotonicity. This
paper proposes translating the multinomial regression problem into a
conditional logistic regression problem, using existing techniques to reduce
this conditional logistic regression problem to one with fewer observations and
fewer covariates, such that probabilities for the canonical sufficient
statistic of interest, conditional on remaining sufficient statistics, are
identical, and translating this conditional logistic regression problem back to
the multinomial regression setting. This reduced multinomial regression problem
does not exhibit monotonicity of its likelihood, and so conventional asymptotic
techniques can be used.
References
[1]
Davison, A.C. (1988) Approximate Conditional Inference in Generalized Linear Models. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 50, 445-461.
[2]
Skovgaard, I. (1987) Saddlepoint Expansions for Conditional Distributions. Journal of Applied Probability, 24, 875-887. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3214212
[3]
Kolassa, J.E. (1997) Infinite Parameter Estimates in Logistic Regression, with Application to Approximate Conditional Inference. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 24, 523-530. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9469.00078
[4]
Albert, A. and Anderson, J.A. (1984) On the Existence of Maximum Likelihood Estimates in Logistic Regression Models. Biometrika, 71, 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biomet/71.1.1
[5]
Jacobsen, M. (1989) Existence and Unicity of Miles in Discrete Exponential Family Distributions. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 16, 335-349.
[6]
Clarkson, D.B. and Jennrich, R.I. (1991) Computing Extended Maximum Likelihood Estimates for Linear Parameter Models. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 53, 417-426.
[7]
Santner, T.J. and Duffy, D.E. (1986) A Note on A. Albert and J. A. Anderson’s Conditions for the Existence of Maximum Likelihood Estimates in Logistic Regression Models. Biometrika, 73, 755-758. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biomet/73.3.755
[8]
Firth, D. (1993) Bias Reduction of Maximum Likelihood Estimates. Biometrika, 80, 27-38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/biomet/80.1.27
[9]
Bull, S.B., Mak, C. and Greenwood, C.M. (2002) A Modified Score Function Estimator for Multinomial Logistic Regression in Small Samples. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, 39, 57-74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0167-9473(01)00048-2
[10]
Jeffreys, H. (1961) Theory of Probability. 3rd Edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
[11]
Heinze, G. and Schemper, M. (2001) A Solution to the Problem of Monotone Likelihood in Cox Regression. Biometrics, 57, 114-119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0006-341X.2001.00114.x
[12]
Barndorff-Nielsen, O.E. (1978) Information and Exponential Families in Statistical Theory. Wiley Series in Probability and Mathematical Statistics. Wiley, New York.
[13]
Robinson, J. and Samonenko, I. (2012) Personal Communication.
[14]
Blajchman, M., Bull, S. and Feinman, S., C.P.-T.H.P.S. (1995) Group Post-Transfusion Hepatitis: Impact of Non-a, Non-b Hepatitis Surrogate Tests. The Lancet, 345, 21-25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(95)91153-7
[15]
Pagano, M. and Halvorsen, K.T. (1981) An Algorithm for Finding the Exact Significance Levels of r × c Contingency Tables. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 76, 931-934. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2287590
[16]
Sanders, D.J., Whiteley, P.F., Clarke, H.D., Stewart, M. and Winters, K. (2007) The British Election Study. University of Essex.
[17]
Hirji, K.F. (1992) Computing Exact Distributions for Polytomous Response Data. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 87, 487-492. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1992.10475230