Easy hypothesis testing in discrete case (uniform distribution)

statistics

We have an estimator $\hat{X}$ of $N$ which takes values in $\{1,2,\cdots,N\}$ with the following mass function:
$$P_N(\hat{X}=k) = \left(\frac{k}{N}\right)^n-\left(\frac{k-1}{N}\right)^{n}.$$
We are given the hypothesis $$H_0:N=20, H_1:N=22$$
and we know that $N\in\{20,22\}.$

I am not sure how to find the rejection region and the boundary of the region knowing that the significance level of the test is $\alpha = 0.05.$

I think that we reject when $N=22.$ But I am not sure how to account for $\alpha$ in this computation. Any hints will be much appreciated.

Best Answer

I suspect you mean to say you would reject $H_0$ when $\hat{X}=22$. You would also reject $H_0$ when $\hat{X}=21$ since that too is inconsistent with $N=20$.

You take $\alpha$ into account in deciding whether to reject $H_0$ when $\hat{X}=20$ or particular smaller values. For that you need some calculations

  • If $H_0$ is true and $N=20$, then $P_{20}(\hat{X} \ge k) = \left(\frac{20}{20}\right)^n-\left(\frac{k-1}{20}\right)^{n}$.
  • You want this to be as big as possible but less than or equal to $\alpha=0.05$.
  • Solving $\left(\frac{20}{20}\right)^n-\left(\frac{k-1}{20}\right)^{n} \le 0.05$ requires $\left(\frac{k-1}{20}\right)^{n} \ge 0.95$ and so $k\ge 1+20\sqrt[n]{0.95}$
  • This then gives a rejection region when $\hat{X} \ge 1+20\sqrt[n]{0.95}$

Note that the answer depends on $n$, which you have not specified.

In practice, since $\hat{X}$ is an integer and by the two hypotheses cannot exceed $22$, the rejection region for $\alpha=0.05$ would be when $\hat{X} \in \{20,21,22\}$ when $n=1$ and $\hat{X} \in \{21,22\}$ when $n \gt 1$

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