A Skew-Normal Copula-Driven GLMM

Abstract

This paper presents a method for fitting a copula-driven generalized linear mixed models. For added flexibility, the skew-normal copula is adopted for fitting. The correlation matrix of the skew-normal copula is used to capture the dependence structure within units, while the fixed and random effects coefficients are estimated through the mean of the copula. For estimation, a Monte Carlo expectation-maximization algorithm is developed. Simulations are shown alongside a real data example from the Framingham Heart Study.