Ranking in the generalized Bradley-Terry models when the strong connection condition fails

DOI10.1080/03610926.2013.809114zbMATH Open1337.62187arXiv1411.1168OpenAlexW1555310745MaRDI QIDQ2807685FDOQ2807685

Ting Yan

Publication date: 25 May 2016

Published in: Communications in Statistics. Theory and Methods (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: For nonbalanced paired comparisons, a wide variety of ranking methods have been proposed. One of the best popular methods is the Bradley-Terry model in which the ranking of a set of objects is decided by the maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) of merits parameters. However, the existence of MLE for the Bradley-Terry model and its generalized models to allow for tied observation or home-field advantage or both to occur, crucially depends on the strong connection condition on the directed graph constructed by a win-loss matrix. When this condition fails, the MLE does not exist and hence there is no solution of ranking. In this paper, we propose an improved version of the $varepsilon$ singular perturbation proposed by Conner and Grant (2000), to address this problem and extend it to the generalized Bradley-Terry models. Some necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the penalized MLEs for these generalized Bradley-Terry-$varepsilon$ models are derived. Numerical studies show that the ranking is robust to the different $varepsilon$. We apply the proposed methods to the data of the 2008 NFL regular season.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.1168

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zbMATH Keywords

paired comparisonsrankinggeneralized Bradley-Terry-modelspenalized maximum likelihood estimate

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Statistical ranking and selection procedures (62F07) Paired and multiple comparisons; multiple testing (62J15)

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Cited In (4)

• Title not available (Why is that?)
• An extension of Zermelo's model for ranking by paired comparisons
• On a connection between the Bradley-Terry model and the Cox proportional hazards model
• A note on ranking in the Plackett-Luce model for multiple comparisons

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