Location--Scale Calibration for Generalized Posterior

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Tamano, Shu, Tomo, Yui
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Tamano, Shu
Tomo, Yui
author_facet Tamano, Shu
Tomo, Yui
contents General Bayesian updating replaces the likelihood with a loss scaled by a learning rate, but posterior uncertainty can depend sharply on that scale. We propose a simple post-processing that aligns generalized posterior draws with their asymptotic target, yielding uncertainty quantification that is invariant to the learning rate. We prove total-variation convergence for generalized posteriors with an effective sample size, allowing sample-size-dependent priors, non-i.i.d. observations, and convex penalties under model misspecification. Within this framework, we justify and extend the open-faced sandwich adjustment (Shaby, 2014), provide general theoretical guarantees for its use within generalized Bayes, and extend it from covariance rescaling to a location--scale calibration whose draws converge in total variation to the target for any learning rate. In our empirical illustration, calibrated draws maintain stable coverage, interval width, and bias over orders of magnitude in the learning rate and closely track frequentist benchmarks, whereas uncalibrated posteriors vary markedly.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_15320
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Location--Scale Calibration for Generalized Posterior
Tamano, Shu
Tomo, Yui
Methodology
General Bayesian updating replaces the likelihood with a loss scaled by a learning rate, but posterior uncertainty can depend sharply on that scale. We propose a simple post-processing that aligns generalized posterior draws with their asymptotic target, yielding uncertainty quantification that is invariant to the learning rate. We prove total-variation convergence for generalized posteriors with an effective sample size, allowing sample-size-dependent priors, non-i.i.d. observations, and convex penalties under model misspecification. Within this framework, we justify and extend the open-faced sandwich adjustment (Shaby, 2014), provide general theoretical guarantees for its use within generalized Bayes, and extend it from covariance rescaling to a location--scale calibration whose draws converge in total variation to the target for any learning rate. In our empirical illustration, calibrated draws maintain stable coverage, interval width, and bias over orders of magnitude in the learning rate and closely track frequentist benchmarks, whereas uncalibrated posteriors vary markedly.
title Location--Scale Calibration for Generalized Posterior
topic Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15320