Finite Mixture and Markov Switching Models
The prominence of finite mixture modelling is greater than ever. Many important statistical topics like clustering data, outlier treatment, or dealing with unobserved heterogeneity involve finite mixture models in some way or other. The area of potential applications goes beyond simple data analysis and extends to regression analysis and to non-linear time series analysis using Markov switching models.It is the first time that the Bayesian perspective of finite mixture modelling is systematically presented in book form. It is argued that the Bayesian approach provides much insight in this context and is easily implemented in practice. Although the main focus is on Bayesian inference, the author reviews several frequentist techniques, especially selecting the number of components of a finite mixture model, and discusses some of their shortcomings compared to the Bayesian approach. The aim of this book is to impart the finite mixture and Markov switching approach to statistical modelling to a wide-ranging community. This includes not only statisticians, but also biologists, economists, engineers, financial agents, market researcher, medical researchers or any other frequent user of statistical models. This book should help newcomers to the field to understand how finite mixture and Markov switching models are formulated, what structures they imply on the data, what they could be used for, and how they are estimated.
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