Optimal and Maximin Procedures for Multiple Testing Problems

Abstract: Multiple testing problems are a staple of modern statistical analysis. The fundamental objective of multiple testing procedures is to reject as many false null hypotheses as possible (that is, maximize some notion of power), subject to controlling an overall measure of false discovery, like family-wise error rate (FWER) or false discovery rate (FDR). In this paper we formulate multiple testing of simple hypotheses as an infinite-dimensional optimization problem, seeking the most powerful rejection policy which guarantees strong control of the selected measure. In that sense, our approach is a generalization of the optimal Neyman-Pearson test for a single hypothesis. We show that for exchangeable hypotheses, for both FWER and FDR and relevant notions of power, these problems can be formulated as infinite linear programs and can in principle be solved for any number of hypotheses. We also characterize maximin rules for complex alternatives, and demonstrate that such rules can be found in practice, leading to improved practical procedures compared to existing alternatives. We derive explicit optimal tests for FWER or FDR control for three independent normal means. We find that the power gain over natural competitors is substantial in all settings examined. Finally, we apply our optimal maximin rule to subgroup analyses in systematic reviews from the Cochrane library, leading to an increase in the number of findings while guaranteeing strong FWER control against the one sided alternative.