Logistic regression with unknown sizes

Abstract

Binomial data with unknown sizes often appear in biological and medical sciences. The previous methods either use the Poisson approximation or the quasi-likelihood approach. A full likelihood approach is proposed by treating unknown sizes as latent variables. This approach simplifies analysis as maximum likelihood estimation can be applied. It also facilitates us to gain a lot more insights into efficiency loss across models and estimation precision within models. Simulation assesses the performance of the proposed model. An application to the surviving jejunal crypt data is discussed. The proposed method is not only competitive with the previous methods, but also gives an appropriate explanation of the inflated variation of expected sizes.