Nonparametric Goodness-of-Fit Tests for Discrete Null Distributions

Authors

Taylor B. Arnold, Yale University
John W. Emerson, Yale University

Date of this Version

12-2011

Document Type

Article

Citation

The R Journal (December 2011) 3(2)

Comments

Copyright 2011, The R Foundation. Open access material. License: CC BY 3.0 Unported

Abstract

Methodology extending nonparametric goodness-of-fit tests to discrete null distributions has existed for several decades. However, modern statistical software has generally failed to provide this methodology to users. We offer a revision of R’s ks.test() function and a new cvm.test() function that fill this need in the R language for two of the most popular nonparametric goodness-of-fit tests. This paper describes these contributions and provides examples of their usage. Particular attention is given to various numerical issues that arise in their implementation.