Statistical Inference for a Class of Startup Demonstration Tests

Abstract

In this article, we develop a general statistical inference procedure for the probability of successful startup p in the case of startup demonstration tests when only the number of trials until termination of the experiment are observed. In particular, we define a class of startup demonstration tests and present expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to get the maximum likelihood estimate of p for this class. Most of well-known startup testing procedures are involved in this class. Extension of the results to Markovian startups is also presented.