Bayesian factor analysis with fat-tailed factors and its exact marginal likelihood

Tomohiro Ando

Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 2009, vol. 100, issue 8, 1717-1726

Abstract: The traditional Bayesian factor analysis method is extended. In contrast to the case for previous studies, the matrix variate t-distribution is utilized to provide a prior density on the latent factors. This is a natural extension of the traditional model and yields many advantages. The crucial issue is the selection of the number of factors. The marginal likelihood, constructed by asymptotic and computational approaches, is generally utilized for this problem. However, both theoretical and computational problems have arisen. In this paper, the exact marginal likelihood is derived. It enables us to evaluate posterior model probabilities without inducing the above problems. Monte Carlo experiments were conducted to examine the performance of the proposed Bayesian factor analysis modelling methodology. The simulation results show that the proposed methodology performs well.

Keywords: Bayesian; methods; Marginal; likelihood; Matrix; variate; t-distribution; Model; selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047-259X(09)00039-6
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jmvana:v:100:y:2009:i:8:p:1717-1726

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Multivariate Analysis is currently edited by de Leeuw, J.

More articles in Journal of Multivariate Analysis from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().