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Related papers: Bayesian Computation with Intractable Likelihoods

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Bayesian inference for complex models with an intractable likelihood can be tackled using algorithms performing many calls to computer simulators. These approaches are collectively known as "simulation-based inference" (SBI). Recent SBI…

Bayesian statistics is concerned with conducting posterior inference for the unknown quantities in a given statistical model. Conventional Bayesian inference requires the specification of a probabilistic model for the observed data, and the…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-05-11 David T. Frazier , Christopher Drovandi , David J. Nott

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) has become an essential tool for the analysis of complex stochastic models when the likelihood function is numerically unavailable. However, the well-established statistical method of empirical…

Computation · Statistics 2015-06-05 K. L. Mengersen , P. Pudlo , C. P. Robert

A computationally simple approach to inference in state space models is proposed, using approximate Bayesian computation (ABC). ABC avoids evaluation of an intractable likelihood by matching summary statistics for the observed data with…

Bayesian inference typically relies on specifying a parametric model that approximates the data-generating process. However, misspecified models can yield poor convergence rates and unreliable posterior calibration. Bayesian empirical…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-27 Kenyon Ng , Weichang Yu , Howard D. Bondell

By the nature of their construction, many statistical models for extremes result in likelihood functions that are computationally prohibitive to evaluate. This is consequently problematic for the purposes of likelihood-based inference. With…

Methodology · Statistics 2014-11-07 Robert Erhardt , Scott A. Sisson

Composite likelihood provides approximate inference when the full likelihood is intractable and sub-likelihood functions of marginal events can be evaluated relatively easily. It has been successfully applied for many complex models.…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-09-05 Wentao Li , Rosabeth White , Dennis Prangle

Composite likelihoods are increasingly used in applications where the full likelihood is analytically unknown or computationally prohibitive. Although the maximum composite likelihood estimator has frequentist properties akin to those of…

Methodology · Statistics 2011-07-08 Mathieu Ribatet , Daniel Cooley , Anthony C. Davison

Approximate Bayesian computation methods are useful for generative models with intractable likelihoods. These methods are however sensitive to the dimension of the parameter space, requiring exponentially increasing resources as this…

Computation · Statistics 2026-02-09 Grégoire Clarté , Christian P. Robert , Robin Ryder , Julien Stoehr

In the following article we consider approximate Bayesian parameter inference for observation driven time series models. Such statistical models appear in a wide variety of applications, including econometrics and applied mathematics. This…

Computation · Statistics 2013-04-01 Ajay Jasra , Nikolas Kantas , Elena Ehrlich

The likelihood-free sequential Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) algorithms, are increasingly popular inference tools for complex biological models. Such algorithms proceed by constructing a succession of probability distributions over…

Computation · Statistics 2012-10-12 Daniel Silk , Saran Filippi , Michael P. H. Stumpf

Models with intractable normalizing functions arise frequently in statistics. Common examples of such models include exponential random graph models for social networks and Markov point processes for ecology and disease modeling. Inference…

Computation · Statistics 2018-08-03 Jaewoo Park , Murali Haran

A large number of statistical models are "doubly-intractable": the likelihood normalising term, which is a function of the model parameters, is intractable, as well as the marginal likelihood (model evidence). This means that standard…

Methodology · Statistics 2015-12-11 Anne-Marie Lyne , Mark Girolami , Yves Atchadé , Heiko Strathmann , Daniel Simpson

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is a method for Bayesian inference when the likelihood is unavailable but simulating from the model is possible. However, many ABC algorithms require a large number of simulations, which can be costly.…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-10-15 Marko Järvenpää , Michael U. Gutmann , Arijus Pleska , Aki Vehtari , Pekka Marttinen

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is a popular likelihood-free inference method for models with intractable likelihood functions. As ABC methods usually rely on comparing summary statistics of observed and simulated data, the choice of…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-06-22 Ayush Bharti , Louis Filstroff , Samuel Kaski

Doubly intractable distributions arise in many settings, for example in Markov models for point processes and exponential random graph models for networks. Bayesian inference for these models is challenging because they involve intractable…

Computation · Statistics 2019-04-03 Jaewoo Park , Murali Haran

This paper is concerned with Bayesian inference when the likelihood is analytically intractable but can be unbiasedly estimated. We propose an annealed importance sampling procedure for estimating expectations with respect to the posterior.…

Methodology · Statistics 2014-02-26 M. -N. Tran , C. Strickland , M. K. Pitt , R. Kohn

Implementing Bayesian inference is often computationally challenging in applications involving complex models, and sometimes calculating the likelihood itself is difficult. Synthetic likelihood is one approach for carrying out inference…

Computation · Statistics 2021-03-15 David T. Frazier , David J. Nott , Christopher Drovandi , Robert Kohn

In this work we consider Bayesian inference problems with intractable likelihood functions. We present a method to compute an approximate of the posterior with a limited number of model simulations. The method features an inverse Gaussian…

Computation · Statistics 2021-02-23 Hongqiao Wang , Ziqiao Ao , Tengchao Yu , Jinglai Li

Model selection in the presence of intractable likelihoods remains a central challenge in Bayesian inference. Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) provides a flexible likelihood-free framework, but its use for model choice is known to be…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-03 Clara Grazian