CQLIM Procedure

Tests on Parameters

In general, you can write the tested hypothesis as

upper H 0 colon bold h left-parenthesis theta right-parenthesis equals 0

where bold h left-parenthesis theta right-parenthesis is an r times 1 vector-valued function of the parameters theta that is given by the r expressions that you specify in the TEST statement.

Let ModifyingAbove upper V With caret be the estimate of the covariance matrix of ModifyingAbove theta With caret. Let ModifyingAbove theta With caret be the unconstrained estimate of theta, and let theta overTilde be the constrained estimate of theta such that h left-parenthesis theta overTilde right-parenthesis equals 0. Let

upper A left-parenthesis theta right-parenthesis equals partial-differential h left-parenthesis theta right-parenthesis slash partial-differential theta vertical-bar Subscript ModifyingAbove theta With caret Baseline

Using this notation, you compute the test statistics for the three types of tests as follows:

  • The Wald test statistic is defined as

    upper W equals h Superscript prime Baseline left-parenthesis ModifyingAbove theta With caret right-parenthesis mathematical flattened left-parenthesis upper A left-parenthesis ModifyingAbove theta With caret right-parenthesis ModifyingAbove upper V With caret upper A Superscript prime Baseline left-parenthesis ModifyingAbove theta With caret right-parenthesis mathematical flattened right-parenthesis Superscript negative 1 Baseline h left-parenthesis ModifyingAbove theta With caret right-parenthesis

    The Wald test is not invariant to reparameterization of the model (Gregory and Veall 1985; Gallant 1987, p. 219). For more information about the theoretical properties of the Wald test, see Phillips and Park (1988).

  • The Lagrange multiplier test statistic is

    upper L upper M equals lamda Superscript prime Baseline upper A left-parenthesis theta overTilde right-parenthesis upper V overTilde upper A Superscript prime Baseline left-parenthesis theta overTilde right-parenthesis lamda

    where lamda is the vector of Lagrange multipliers from the computation of the restricted estimate theta overTilde.

  • The likelihood ratio test statistic is

    upper L upper R equals 2 left-parenthesis upper L left-parenthesis ModifyingAbove theta With caret right-parenthesis minus upper L left-parenthesis theta overTilde right-parenthesis right-parenthesis

    where theta overTilde represents the constrained estimate of theta and upper L is the concentrated log-likelihood value.

For each type of test, under the null hypothesis the test statistic is asymptotically distributed as a random variable with r degrees of freedom, where r is the number of expressions in the TEST statement. The p-values that are reported for the tests are computed from the distribution and are only asymptotically valid.

Monte Carlo simulations suggest that the asymptotic distribution of the Wald test is a poorer approximation of its small sample distribution than that of the other two tests. However, the Wald test has the lowest computational cost, because it does not require computation of the constrained estimate theta overTilde.

The following statements use the TEST statement to perform a likelihood ratio test:

proc cqlim;
   model y = x1 x2 x3;
   test x1 = 0, x2 * .5 + 2 * x3 = 0 /lr;
run;

For more information, see SAS/ETS User's Guide.

Last updated: July 09, 2026