English

Laplace's rule of succession in information geometry

Information Theory 2015-03-17 v1 math.IT Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

Laplace's "add-one" rule of succession modifies the observed frequencies in a sequence of heads and tails by adding one to the observed counts. This improves prediction by avoiding zero probabilities and corresponds to a uniform Bayesian prior on the parameter. The canonical Jeffreys prior corresponds to the "add-one-half" rule. We prove that, for exponential families of distributions, such Bayesian predictors can be approximated by taking the average of the maximum likelihood predictor and the \emph{sequential normalized maximum likelihood} predictor from information theory. Thus in this case it is possible to approximate Bayesian predictors without the cost of integrating or sampling in parameter space.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1503.04304,
  title  = {Laplace's rule of succession in information geometry},
  author = {Yann Ollivier},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.04304},
  year   = {2015}
}