Inferences on the common coefficient of variation

The coefficient of variation is often used as a measure of precision and reproducibility of data in medical and biological science. This paper considers the problem of making inference about the common population coefficient of variation when it is a priori suspected that several independent samples are from populations with a common coefficient of variation. The procedures for confidence interval estimation and hypothesis testing are developed based on the concepts of generalized variables. The coverage properties of the proposed confidence intervals and type-I errors of the proposed tests are evaluated by simulation. The proposed methods are illustrated by a real life example. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.