4.II.27I

Principles of Statistics
Part II, 2008

Define sufficient statistic, and state the factorisation criterion for determining whether a statistic is sufficient. Show that a Bayesian posterior distribution depends on the data only through the value of a sufficient statistic.

Given the value μ\mu of an unknown parameter MM, observables X1,,XnX_{1}, \ldots, X_{n} are independent and identically distributed with distribution N(μ,1)\mathcal{N}(\mu, 1). Show that the statistic Xˉ:=n1i=1nXi\bar{X}:=n^{-1} \sum_{i=1}^{n} X_{i} is sufficient for M\mathrm{M}.

If the prior distribution is MN(0,τ2)\mathrm{M} \sim \mathcal{N}\left(0, \tau^{2}\right), determine the posterior distribution of M\mathrm{M} and the predictive distribution of Xˉ\bar{X}.

In fact, there are two hypotheses as to the value of M. Under hypothesis H0H_{0}, M\mathrm{M} takes the known value 0 ; under H1,MH_{1}, \mathrm{M} is unknown, with prior distribution N(0,τ2)\mathcal{N}\left(0, \tau^{2}\right). Explain why the Bayes factor for choosing between H0H_{0} and H1H_{1} depends only on Xˉ\bar{X}, and determine its value for data X1=x1,,Xn=xnX_{1}=x_{1}, \ldots, X_{n}=x_{n}.

The frequentist 5%5 \%-level test of H0H_{0} against H1H_{1} rejects H0H_{0} when Xˉ1.96/n|\bar{X}| \geqslant 1.96 / \sqrt{n}. What is the Bayes factor for the critical case xˉ=1.96/n|\bar{x}|=1.96 / \sqrt{n} ? How does this behave as nn \rightarrow \infty ? Comment on the similarities or differences in behaviour between the frequentist and Bayesian tests.