COMPSTAT 2010 TUTORIALBayesian discrimination between embedded modelsJean-Michel MarinInstitut de Mathematiques et Modelisation de MontpellierUniversite Montpellier 2We aim at presenting the most standard approaches to the approximation of Bayes factors.The Bayes factor is a fundamental procedure that stands at the core of the Bayesian theory oftesting hypotheses, at least in the approach advocated by both Je reys (1939) and by Jaynes(2003). Given an hypothesis H : 2 on the parameter2 of a statistical model, with0 0density f(yj), under a compatible prior of the formc( ) () +( ) ();0 0 10the Bayes factor is de ned as the posterior odds to prior odds ratio, namely Z Z( jy) ( )0 0B (y) = = f(yj) ()d f(yj) ()d:01 0 1c c( jy) ( ) c 0 0 0 0Model choice can be considered from a similar perspective, since, under the Bayesian paradigm(see, e.g., Robert 2001), the comparison of modelsM :yf (yj ); ( ); 2 ; i2I;i i i i i i i iwhere the familyI can be nite or in nite, leads to posterior probabilities of the models undercomparison such that ZP (M =Mjy)/p f (yj ) ( )d ;i i i i i i iiwhere p =P(M =M ) is the prior probability of model M .i i iWe consider some of the most common Monte Carlo solutions used to approximate ageneric Bayes factor or its fundamental component, the evidenceZm = ( )f (yj ) d ;i i i i i iiaka the marginal likelihood. Longer entries can be found in Carlin and Chib (1995), Chenet al. ...
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