Semiparametric maximum likelihood for nonlinear regression with measurement errors

This article demonstrates semiparametric maximum likelihood estimation of a nonlinear growth model for fish lengths using imprecisely measured ages. Data on the species corvina reina, found in the Gulf of Nicoya, Costa Rica, consist of lengths and imprecise ages for 168 fish and precise ages for a subset of 16 fish. The statistical problem may therefore be classified as nonlinear errors-in-variables regression with internal validation data. Inferential techniques are based on ideas extracted from several previous works on semiparametric maximum likelihood for errors-in-variables problems. The illustration of the example clarifies practical aspects of the associated computational, inferential, and data analytic techniques.