Testing Equality of Distributions via Repeatedly Integrated Quantile Metrics Under Weak Moment Conditions

Abstract

Testing whether two independent samples arise from the same underlying distribution is a fundamental statistical problem. We propose a new class of two-sample distribution tests based on a family of probability metrics $\Delta_{n,p}$, constructed from repeatedly integrated quantile functions. On their respective domains, these metrics are proved to be genuine distributional distances. The case $n=1$ recovers the $p$-Wasserstein distance, which requires finite $p$-th moments; for $n\geq2$, the proposed metrics are well defined and require only finite first moments. The asymptotic properties of the plug-in statistic are established, including strong consistency and limiting distributions under the null and fixed alternatives. A permutation calibration for finite-sample inference is also proposed. We further derive an asymptotic power function under local alternatives. Finally, the finite-sample performance of the proposed tests is examined through simulation studies, and their reduced sensitivity to extreme upper-tail observations is illustrated through a real data application.