Applied Mathematics, 2016, 7, 1103-1115
Published Online June 2016 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/am
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/am.2016.710098
How to cite this paper: Nguefack-Tsague, G. and Zucchini, W. (2016) Effects of Bayesian Model Selection on Frequentist
Performances: An Alternative Approach. Applied Mathematics, 7, 1103-1115. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/am.2016.710098
Effects of Bayesian Model Selection on
Frequentist Performances: An Alternative
Approach
Georges Nguefack-Tsague
1
, Walter Zucchini
2
1
Biostatistics Unit, Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of
Yaounde 1, Yaounde, Cameroon
2
Institute for Statistics and Econometrics, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany
Received 15 April 2016; accepted 19 June 2016; published 22 June 2016
Copyright © 2016 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Abstract
It is quite common in statistical modeling to select a model and make inference as if the model had
been known in advance; i.e. ignoring model selection uncertainty. The resulted estimator is called
post-model selection estimator (PMSE) whose properties are hard to derive. Conditioning on data
at hand (as it is usually the case), Bayesian model selection is free of this phenomenon. This paper
is concerned with the properties of Bayesian estimator obtained after model selection when the
frequentist (long run) performances of the resulted Bayesian estimator are of interest. The pro-
posed method, using Bayesian decision theory, is based on the well known Bayesian model aver-
aging (BMA)’s machinery; and outperforms PMSE and BMA. It is shown that if the unconditional
model selection probability is equal to model prior, then the proposed approach reduces BMA.
The method is illustrated using Bernoulli trials.
Keywords
Model Selection Uncertainty, Model Uncertainty, Bayesian Model Selection, Bayesian Model
Averaging, Bayesian Theory, Frequentist Performance
1. Introduction
Statistical modeling usually deals with situation in which some quantity of interest is to be estimated from a
sample of observations that can be regarded as realizations of some unknown probability distribution. In order to
do so, it is necessary to specify a model for the distribution. There are usually many alternative plausible models