Markov Chain Monte Carlo: Can We Trust the Third Significant Figure?

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  • 5 March 2008
Abstract
Current reporting of results based on Markov chain Monte Carlo computations could be improved. In particular, a measure of the accuracy of the resulting estimates is rarely reported in the literature. Thus the reader has little ability to objectively assess the quality of the reported estimates. This paper is an attempt to address this issue in that we discuss why Monte Carlo standard errors are important, how they can be easily calculated in Markov chain Monte Carlo and how they can be used to decide when to stop the simulation. We compare their use to a popular alternative in the context of two examples.

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