Normal approximation for the posterior in exponential families
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In this paper we obtain quantitative Bernstein-von Mises type bounds on the normal approximation of the posterior distribution in exponential family models when centering either around the posterior mode or around the maximum likelihood estimator. Our bounds, obtained through a version of Stein's method, are non-asymptotic, and data dependent; they are of the correct order both in the total variation and Wasserstein distances, as well as for approximations for expectations of smooth functions of the posterior. All our results are valid for univariate and multivariate posteriors alike, and do not require a conjugate prior setting. We illustrate our findings on a variety of exponential family distributions, including Poisson, multinomial and normal distribution with unknown mean and variance. The resulting bounds have an explicit dependence on the prior distribution and on sufficient statistics of the data from the sample, and thus provide insight into how these factors may affect the quality of the normal approximation. The performance of the bounds is also assessed with simulations.
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