Bayesian Semiparametric Density Estimation and Model Verification Using a Logistic–Gaussian Process
Peter Lenk · Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics · 2003
This article proposes a semiparametric model, which consists of parametric and nonparametric components, for density estimation. The parametric component represents the researcher's a priori beliefs about a likely family of density functions. The nonparametric component, which is modeled by a logistic–Gaussian process, allows the predictive distribution to deviate from the parametric family if it is inadequate. Bayesian hypothesis testing is used to examine the adequacy of the parametric model relative to the flexible alternative provided by the semiparametric model. The article presents a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that efficiently handles the large number of parameters.