ADAPTIVE BAYESIAN ESTIMATION OF CONDITIONAL DENSITIES

Andriy Norets and Debdeep Pati

Econometric Theory, 2017, vol. 33, issue 4, 980-1012

Abstract: We consider a nonparametric Bayesian model for conditional densities. The model is a finite mixture of normal distributions with covariate dependent multinomial logit mixing probabilities. A prior for the number of mixture components is specified on positive integers. The marginal distribution of covariates is not modeled. We study asymptotic frequentist behavior of the posterior in this model. Specifically, we show that when the true conditional density has a certain smoothness level, then the posterior contraction rate around the truth is equal up to a log factor to the frequentist minimax rate of estimation. An extension to the case when the covariate space is unbounded is also established. As our result holds without a priori knowledge of the smoothness level of the true density, the established posterior contraction rates are adaptive. Moreover, we show that the rate is not affected by inclusion of irrelevant covariates in the model. In Monte Carlo simulations, a version of the model compares favorably to a cross-validated kernel conditional density estimator.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:etheor:v:33:y:2017:i:04:p:980-1012_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Econometric Theory from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().