A Modification of the Shapiro-Wilk Test for Exponentiality Based on Censored Data

Kim (2001a) presented a modification of the Shapiro and Wilk (1972) test for exponentiality based on the ratio of two asymptotically efficient estimates of scale. In this paper we modify this test statistic when the sample is censored. We use the normalized spacings based on the sample data, which was used in Samanta and Schwarz (1988) to modify the Shapiro and Wilk (1972) statistic to the censored data. As a result the modified statistics have the same null distribution as the uncensored case with a corresponding reduction in sample size. Through a simulation study it is found that the proposed statistic has higher power than Samanta and Schwarz (1988) statistic especially for the alternatives with the coefficient of variation greater than or equal to 1.