# How to use Approximate Bayesian computation to estimate the parameters of a function?

I am new in bayesian analysis and I want to use Approximate Bayesian computation in order to convert an odd giving to me by a bookmaker to a probability that the event occurs. Here is the Python code I created to do it but my model doesn't converge. I guess something is wrong somewhere.

To begin, I have a dataset like this one:

  odd   outcome
1.47         1
3.21         0
10.22         0
1.17         1
1.17         0
2.12         1
1.82         0


I assume my model is a function with two parameters $$a$$ and $$b$$: $$proba = f(odd) = b + a/odd$$. So, the objective of my ABC is to find the distribution of $$a$$ and $$b$$. My prior about these parameters is $$a$$ and $$b$$ are independents and $$a$$ is following a normal distribution with a mean of 1.0 and a standard deviation of 0.1 ($$a \sim N(1.0,0.1)$$) and b is also following a normal distribution with a mean of 0.0 and a standard deviation of 0.1 ($$b \sim N(0.0,0.1)$$).

Before building my model with the real dataset, I chose to build one on my own to be sure my model is correct. So, I created my $$f$$ function with the fixed parameters $$a=0.97$$ and $$b=-0.02$$. Then, I generated my dataset: I picked the inverse of a number between 0.01 and 0.99 from an uniform random variable to generate my odd using my $$f$$ function and I simulated a Bernoulli trial with parameter $$p = f(odd)$$.

Now, it's time to implement ABC. The idea is to generate $$n$$ tuples $$(a,b)$$ from my prior distribution, feed the $$f$$ function with a subset of $$k$$ rows from my dataset, perform a Bernoulli trial with $$p=f(odd)$$ and reject all tuples who have a different result than my dataset.

Here is an example with $$n=100000$$ and $$k=5$$:

1. I generate a new dataset of 5 rows following the steps described above:
  odd   outcome
1.47         1
3.21         0
10.22         0
1.17         1
1.17         0

1. I generate 100000 tuples $$(a,b)$$ following my prior distribution:
   a      b
0.93   0.09
0.86   0.04
1.21  -0.17
0.90   0.07
0.95  -0.16

1. For each tuple, I use the odds from my dataset and the value of my parameters $$a$$ and $$b$$ to generate a probability using my $$f$$ function. Then, I perform a Bernoulli trial to get my outcome. For instance, for the tuple (0.93,0.09), I get:
  odd   f(odd) outcome
1.47     0.72       1
3.21     0.38       0
10.22     0.18       0
1.17     0.88       0
1.17     0.88       1


I should add if $$f(odd)$$ is greater than 1, I force the result to 1. Same way if the result is lower than 0.

1. Because the outcome is different than my dataset, I reject that tuple.

2. I repeat step 3 for all tuples and I get my posterior corresponding to all my tuples I didn't reject.

Because I want to perform these steps $$m$$ times ($$m=1000$$ in my code), I have to be able to generate a new list of tuples from my posterior. To do so, I decided to make a kernel-density estimate with a Gaussian kernel to create a new distribution from my posterior.

By this way, I hope the mean of my posterior will converge to $$(0.9,-0.02)$$ (the value I fixed for $$a$$ and $$b$$) but, as I said, it doesn't converge. Here is the evolution of the mean of $$a$$ and $$b$$ for each step of my algorithm:

The shaded area represents the mean +/- 1.96 standard deviation. We can also see that the standard deviation is not reducing.

Is something wrong with my methodology?

Edit: I tried to change my prior to one with an incoherent mean and a huge standard deviation and I got these results: We can see that a coherent value for $$a$$ and $$b$$ is found really quickly but the algorithm still can't converge to a precise value for these parameters. I guess my algorithm is correct but my model (my $$f$$ function) can't be more precise. What do you think?

• I do not understand what is going on from "Because I want to perform these steps $m$ times..." What is the meaning of this repetition in connection with ABC? Aug 28 '19 at 14:14
• It is also unclear why you need ABC in this simple setting. Regular MCMC does work there. Aug 28 '19 at 15:00