Surveys in many different research fields rely on sequences of Likert scale questions to assess individuals' general attitudes toward a set of related topics. Most analyses of responses to such a series do not take into account the potential measurement error introduced by the context effect we...

This paper considers the role of question order and framing in evaluating subjective health assessment responses using the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) dataset. In the first wave of this dataset respondents were twice asked to evaluate their health on a five-point...

It is shown in this paper that the data augmentation technique undermines the theoretical underpinnings of the deviance information criterion (DIC), a widely used information criterion for Bayesian model comparison, although it facilitates parameter estimation for latent variable models via...

In this paper a new Bayesian approach is proposed to test a point null hypothesis based on the deviance in a decision-theoretical framework. The proposed test statistic may be regarded as the Bayesian version of the likelihood ratio test and appeals in practical applications with three desirable...

It is shown in this paper that the data augmentation technique undermines the theoretical underpinnings of the deviance information criterion (DIC), a widely used information criterion for Bayesian model comparison, although it facilitates parameter estimation for latent variable models via...

Convergence of the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm to a global optimum of the marginal log likelihood function for unconstrained latent variable models with categorical indicators is presented. The sufficient conditions under which global convergence of the EM algorithm is attainable are...

A new Bayesian test statistic is proposed to test a point null hypothesis based on a quadratic loss. The proposed test statistic may be regarded as the Bayesian version of Lagrange multiplier test. Its asymptotic distribution is obtained based on a set of regular conditions and follows a...

This paper estimates a simple univariate model of expectation or opinion formation in continuous time adapting a 'canonical' stochastic model of collective opinion dynamics (Weidlich and Haag, 1983; Lux, 1995, 2007). This framework is applied to a selected data set on survey-based expectations from...