Empirical likelihood analysis of the rank estimator for the censored accelerated failure time model

Abstract

We use the empirical likelihood method to derive a test and thus a confidence interval based on the rank estimators of the regression coefficient in the accelerated failure time model. Standard chi-squared distributions are used to calculate the p-value and to construct the confidence interval. Simulations and examples show that the chi-squared approximation to the distribution of the log empirical likelihood ratio performs well, and has some advantages over the existing methods. © 2005 Biometrika Trust.