Selection of a MCMC simulation strategy via an entropy convergence criterion

Abstract

In MCMC methods, such as the Metropolis-Hastings (MH) algorithm, the Gibbs sampler, or recent adaptive methods, many different strategies can be proposed, often associated in practice to unknown rates of convergence. In this paper we propose a simulation-based methodology to compare these rates of convergence, grounded on an entropy criterion computed from parallel (i.i.d.) simulated Markov chains coming from each candidate strategy. Our criterion determines on the very first iterations the best strategy among the candidates. Theoretically, we give for the MH algorithm general conditions under which its successive densities satisfy adequate smoothness and tail properties, so that this entropy criterion can be estimated consistently using kernel density estimate and Monte Carlo integration. Simulated examples are provided to illustrate this convergence criterion.