Optimal scaling of Metropolis algorithms: Heading toward general target distributions
✍ Scribed by Mylène Bédard; Jeffrey S. Rosenthal
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2008
- Tongue
- French
- Weight
- 279 KB
- Volume
- 36
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0319-5724
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✦ Synopsis
Abstract
The authors provide an overview of optimal scaling results for the Metropolis algorithm with Gaussian proposal distribution. They address in more depth the case of high‐dimensional target distributions formed of independent, but not identically distributed components. They attempt to give an intuitive explanation as to why the well‐known optimal acceptance rate of 0.234 is not always suitable. They show how to find the asymptotically optimal acceptance rate when needed, and they explain why it is sometimes necessary to turn to inhomogeneous proposal distributions. Their results are illustrated with a simple example.