English

Coverage-adjusted confidence intervals for a binomial proportion

Methodology 2015-03-11 v2 Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

We consider the classic problem of interval estimation of a proportion pp based on binomial sampling. The "exact" Clopper-Pearson confidence interval for pp is known to be unnecessarily conservative. We propose coverage-adjustments of the Clopper-Pearson interval using prior and posterior distributions of pp. The adjusted intervals have improved coverage and are often shorter than competing intervals found in the literature. Using new heatmap-type plots for comparing confidence intervals, we find that the coverage-adjusted intervals are particularly suitable for pp close to 0 or 1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1204.5894,
  title  = {Coverage-adjusted confidence intervals for a binomial proportion},
  author = {Måns Thulin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1204.5894},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

20 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables

R2 v1 2026-06-21T20:55:04.223Z