This paper is concerned with the well known Jeffreys–Lindley paradox. In a Bayesian set up, the so-called paradox arises when a point null hypothesis is tested and an objective prior is sought for the alternative hypothesis. In particular, the posterior for the null hypothesis tends to one when the uncertainty, i.e., the variance, for the parameter value goes to infinity. We argue that the appropriate way to deal with the paradox is to use simple mathematics, and that any philosophical argument is to be regarded as irrelevant.

On the mathematics of the Jeffreys–Lindley paradox / C. Villa, S. Walker. - In: COMMUNICATIONS IN STATISTICS. THEORY AND METHODS. - ISSN 0361-0926. - 46:24(2017), pp. 12290-12298. [10.1080/03610926.2017.1295073]

On the mathematics of the Jeffreys–Lindley paradox

C. Villa;
2017

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the well known Jeffreys–Lindley paradox. In a Bayesian set up, the so-called paradox arises when a point null hypothesis is tested and an objective prior is sought for the alternative hypothesis. In particular, the posterior for the null hypothesis tends to one when the uncertainty, i.e., the variance, for the parameter value goes to infinity. We argue that the appropriate way to deal with the paradox is to use simple mathematics, and that any philosophical argument is to be regarded as irrelevant.
Bayes factor; Bayesian hypothesis testing; Kullback-Leibler divergence; self-information loss
Settore SECS-S/01 - Statistica
2017
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/794762
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