Multivariate goodness-of-fit tests based on statistically equivalent blocks

Various nonparametric procedures are known for the goodness-of-fit test in the univariate case. The distribution-free nature of these procedures does not extend to the multivariate case. In this paper, we consider an application of the theory of statistically equivalent blocks(SEB)to obtain distribution-free procedures for the multivariate case. The sample values are transformed to random variables which are distributed as sample spacings from a uniform distribution on [0, 1], under the null hypothesis. Various test statistics are known, based on the spacings, which are used for testing uniformity in the univariate case. Any of these statistics can be used in the multivariate situation, based on the spacings generated from the SEB. This paper gives an expository development of the theory of SEB and a review of tests for goodness-of-fit, based on sample spacings. To show an application of the SEB, we consider a test of bivariate normality.