Calibrating Model-Based Inferences and Decisions

Abstract

As the frontiers of applied statistics progress through increasingly complex experiments we must exploit increasingly sophisticated inferential models to analyze the observations we make. In order to avoid misleading or outright erroneous inferences we then have to be increasingly diligent in scrutinizing the consequences of those modeling assumptions. Fortunately model-based methods of statistical inference naturally define procedures for quantifying the scope of inferential outcomes and calibrating corresponding decision making processes. In this paper I review the construction and implementation of the particular procedures that arise within frequentist and Bayesian methodologies.