IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jorssb/v70y2008i3p589-607.html

Marginal likelihood estimation via power posteriors

Author

Listed:
  • N. Friel
  • A. N. Pettitt

Abstract

Summary. Model choice plays an increasingly important role in statistics. From a Bayesian perspective a crucial goal is to compute the marginal likelihood of the data for a given model. However, this is typically a difficult task since it amounts to integrating over all model parameters. The aim of the paper is to illustrate how this may be achieved by using ideas from thermodynamic integration or path sampling. We show how the marginal likelihood can be computed via Markov chain Monte Carlo methods on modified posterior distributions for each model. This then allows Bayes factors or posterior model probabilities to be calculated. We show that this approach requires very little tuning and is straightforward to implement. The new method is illustrated in a variety of challenging statistical settings.

Suggested Citation

  • N. Friel & A. N. Pettitt, 2008. "Marginal likelihood estimation via power posteriors," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 70(3), pages 589-607, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jorssb:v:70:y:2008:i:3:p:589-607
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9868.2007.00650.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9868.2007.00650.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9868.2007.00650.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. S. P. Brooks & P. Giudici & G. O. Roberts, 2003. "Efficient construction of reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo proposal distributions," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 65(1), pages 3-39, January.
    2. Jose M. Perez, 2002. "Expected-posterior prior distributions for model selection," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 89(3), pages 491-512, August.
    3. Ian L. Dryden & Mark R. Scarr & Charles C. Taylor, 2003. "Bayesian texture segmentation of weed and crop images using reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo methods," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 52(1), pages 31-50, January.
    4. R. Reeves, 2004. "Efficient recursions for general factorisable models," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 91(3), pages 751-757, September.
    5. Han C. & Carlin B. P., 2001. "Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods for Computing Bayes Factors: A Comparative Review," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 96, pages 1122-1132, September.
    6. David J. Spiegelhalter & Nicola G. Best & Bradley P. Carlin & Angelika Van Der Linde, 2002. "Bayesian measures of model complexity and fit," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 64(4), pages 583-639, October.
    7. Chib S. & Jeliazkov I., 2001. "Marginal Likelihood From the Metropolis-Hastings Output," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 96, pages 270-281, March.
    8. Francesco Bartolucci & Luisa Scaccia & Antonietta Mira, 2006. "Efficient Bayes factor estimation from the reversible jump output," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 93(1), pages 41-52, March.
    9. Sisson, Scott A., 2005. "Transdimensional Markov Chains: A Decade of Progress and Future Perspectives," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 100, pages 1077-1089, September.
    10. P. G. Ridall & A. N. Pettitt & N. Friel & P. A. McCombe & R. D. Henderson, 2007. "Motor unit number estimation using reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo methods," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 56(3), pages 235-269, May.
    11. Green P.J. & Richardson S., 2002. "Hidden Markov Models and Disease Mapping," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 1055-1070, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alzahrani, Naif & Neal, Peter & Spencer, Simon E.F. & McKinley, Trevelyan J. & Touloupou, Panayiota, 2018. "Model selection for time series of count data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 33-44.
    2. Kobayashi, Genya, 2014. "A transdimensional approximate Bayesian computation using the pseudo-marginal approach for model choice," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 167-183.
    3. McGrory, C.A. & Titterington, D.M., 2007. "Variational approximations in Bayesian model selection for finite mixture distributions," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 51(11), pages 5352-5367, July.
    4. Liu, Xiaobin & Li, Yong & Yu, Jun & Zeng, Tao, 2022. "Posterior-based Wald-type statistics for hypothesis testing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 230(1), pages 83-113.
    5. Chen, Langnan & Luo, Jiawen & Liu, Hao, 2013. "The determinants of liquidity with G-RJMCMC-VS model: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 192-198.
    6. David I. Hastie & Peter J. Green, 2012. "Model choice using reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 66(3), pages 309-338, August.
    7. Nicola J. Cooper & Paul C. Lambert & Keith R. Abrams & Alexander J. Sutton, 2007. "Predicting costs over time using Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo methods: an application to early inflammatory polyarthritis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 37-56, January.
    8. Vidal, Ignacio & Iglesias, Pilar, 2008. "Comparison between a measurement error model and a linear model without measurement error," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 92-102, September.
    9. Wang, Joanna J.J. & Chan, Jennifer S.K. & Choy, S.T. Boris, 2011. "Stochastic volatility models with leverage and heavy-tailed distributions: A Bayesian approach using scale mixtures," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 852-862, January.
    10. White, Staci A. & Herbei, Radu, 2015. "A Monte Carlo approach to quantifying model error in Bayesian parameter estimation," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 168-181.
    11. Chen, Cathy W.S. & Chan, Jennifer S.K. & So, Mike K.P. & Lee, Kevin K.M., 2011. "Classification in segmented regression problems," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 2276-2287, July.
    12. Li, Yong & Liu, Xiao-Bin & Yu, Jun, 2015. "A Bayesian chi-squared test for hypothesis testing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 54-69.
    13. Frühwirth-Schnatter, Sylvia & Wagner, Helga, 2008. "Marginal likelihoods for non-Gaussian models using auxiliary mixture sampling," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 52(10), pages 4608-4624, June.
    14. Ye Yang & Osman Dogan & Suleyman Taspinar & Fei Jin, 2023. "A Review of Cross-Sectional Matrix Exponential Spatial Models," Papers 2311.14813, arXiv.org.
    15. Osman Doğan & Süleyman Taşpınar & Anil K. Bera, 2021. "Bayesian estimation of stochastic tail index from high-frequency financial data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2685-2711, November.
    16. Raggi, Davide & Bordignon, Silvano, 2006. "Comparing stochastic volatility models through Monte Carlo simulations," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1678-1699, April.
    17. Shotwell Matthew S & Slate Elizabeth H, 2010. "Bayesian Modeling of Footrace Finishing Times," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 6(3), pages 1-21, July.
    18. Timothy Cogley & Argia M. Sbordone, 2006. "Trend inflation and inflation persistence in the New Keynesian Phillips curve," Staff Reports 270, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    19. Rodriguez, Gabriel & Castillo B., Paul & Calero, Roberto & Salcedo Cisneros, Rodrigo & Ataurima Arellano, Miguel, 2024. "Evolution of the exchange rate pass-through into prices in Peru: An empirical application using TVP-VAR-SV models," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    20. Komárek, Arnost, 2009. "A new R package for Bayesian estimation of multivariate normal mixtures allowing for selection of the number of components and interval-censored data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 53(12), pages 3932-3947, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jorssb:v:70:y:2008:i:3:p:589-607. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rssssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.