Interpretation of sdtest

[Paolo Gutierrez]

Hi everyone,

I am using the sdtest command to evaluate variances in two groupes. But in Stata's output, I'm have problems with the interpretation.

I'm interpreting like: At a significance level of 5%, the null hypothesis cannot be rejected. But, at a significance level of 1%, the null hypothesis can be rejected.

So, my doubt is: Am I right?
I would appreciate if you can help me with this question. If you could recommend me books on the subject, I would really appreciate it.

[Maarten Buis]

No, exactly the other way around: at the 5% level the null-hypothesis that the standard deviations are equal can be rejected, while at the 1% level this null hypothesis cannot be rejected.

But why did you choose 5% and 1%, why not 4% and 0.5%? These levels are completely arbitrary, and as a result the resulting conclusions are equally arbitrary. See e.g. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...5.2019.1583913

[Paolo Gutierrez]

Hi Maarten,

Thank you so much, I was wrong. You are right about the results and significance levels.