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How does Metropolis-Hastings work?

hard

Answer

  • MCMC: build a Markov chain whose stationary distribution is the posterior.
  • Given current θ, propose θ' ~ q(θ    θ)q({\theta}\; \mid \;{\theta}).
  • Accept with probability α  =  min(1,  [p(θ    D)  q(θ    θ)]  /  [p(θ    D)  q(θ    θ)]){\alpha}\; = \;\operatorname{min}(1, \;[p({\theta}\; \mid \;D)\;q({\theta}\; \mid \;{\theta})]\; / \;[p({\theta}\; \mid \;D)\;q({\theta}\; \mid \;{\theta})]).
  • Symmetric q simplifies to α  =  min(1,  p(θ    D)  /  p(θ    D)){\alpha}\; = \;\operatorname{min}(1, \;p({\theta}\; \mid \;D)\; / \;p({\theta}\; \mid \;D)).
  • Only needs the posterior up to a constant → dodges intractable evidence.
  • Weaknesses: slow mixing in high dims; sensitive to proposal scale.
Check yourself — multiple choice
  • Random
  • Propose θ' ~ q(θθ)q({\theta} \mid {\theta}), accept with α  =  min(1,  [p(θD)q(θθ)]  /  [p(θD)q(θθ)]){\alpha}\; = \;\operatorname{min}(1, \;[p({\theta} \mid D)q({\theta} \mid {\theta})]\; / \;[p({\theta} \mid D)q({\theta} \mid {\theta})]); needs posterior up to constant only
  • Same as Gibbs
  • Not MCMC

Metropolis-Hastings: propose + accept with α; needs unnormalized posterior only.

#bayesian#mcmc

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