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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Andrieu, Christophe, Lee, Anthony, Power, Sam, Wang, Andi Q.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.05605
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author Andrieu, Christophe
Lee, Anthony
Power, Sam
Wang, Andi Q.
author_facet Andrieu, Christophe
Lee, Anthony
Power, Sam
Wang, Andi Q.
contents We investigate the use of a certain class of functional inequalities known as weak Poincaré inequalities to bound convergence of Markov chains to equilibrium. We show that this enables the straightforward and transparent derivation of subgeometric convergence bounds for methods such as the Independent Metropolis--Hastings sampler and pseudo-marginal methods for intractable likelihoods, the latter being subgeometric in many practical settings. These results rely on novel quantitative comparison theorems between Markov chains. Associated proofs are simpler than those relying on drift/minorization conditions and the tools developed allow us to recover and further extend known results as particular cases. We are then able to provide new insights into the practical use of pseudo-marginal algorithms, analyse the effect of averaging in Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) and the use of products of independent averages, and also to study the case of lognormal weights relevant to particle marginal Metropolis--Hastings (PMMH).
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2112_05605
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Comparison of Markov chains via weak Poincaré inequalities with application to pseudo-marginal MCMC
Andrieu, Christophe
Lee, Anthony
Power, Sam
Wang, Andi Q.
Computation
Machine Learning
65C40, 65C05, 62J10
We investigate the use of a certain class of functional inequalities known as weak Poincaré inequalities to bound convergence of Markov chains to equilibrium. We show that this enables the straightforward and transparent derivation of subgeometric convergence bounds for methods such as the Independent Metropolis--Hastings sampler and pseudo-marginal methods for intractable likelihoods, the latter being subgeometric in many practical settings. These results rely on novel quantitative comparison theorems between Markov chains. Associated proofs are simpler than those relying on drift/minorization conditions and the tools developed allow us to recover and further extend known results as particular cases. We are then able to provide new insights into the practical use of pseudo-marginal algorithms, analyse the effect of averaging in Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) and the use of products of independent averages, and also to study the case of lognormal weights relevant to particle marginal Metropolis--Hastings (PMMH).
title Comparison of Markov chains via weak Poincaré inequalities with application to pseudo-marginal MCMC
topic Computation
Machine Learning
65C40, 65C05, 62J10
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.05605