Jeffreys interval. Beta distributions are the
standard conjugate priors for binomial distributions
and it is quite common to use beta priors for inference
on p (see Berger, 1985).
Suppose X ∼ Binn p and suppose p has a prior
distribution Beta a1 a2; then the posterior distribution
of p is BetaX + a1 n − X + a2. Thus a
1001 − α% equal-tailedBayesian interval is given
by
Bα/2 X + a1 n − X + a2
B1 − α/2 X + a1 n − X + a2
where Bα m1 m2 denotes the α quantile of a
Beta m1 m2 distribution.
The well-known Jeffreys prior and the uniform
prior are each a beta distribution. The noninformative
Jeffreys prior is of particular interest to us.
Historically, Bayes procedures under noninformative
priors have a track recordof goodfrequentist
properties; see Wasserman (1991). In this problem
the Jeffreys prior is Beta1/2 1/2 which has the
density function
fp = π−1p−1/21 − p
−1/2
The 1001 − α% equal-tailed Jeffreys prior interval
is defined as
(6) CIJ = LJx UJx
where LJ0 = 0 UJn = 1 and otherwise
(7) LJx = Bα/2 X + 1/2 n − X + 1/2
(8) UJx = B1 − α/2 X + 1/2 n − X + 1/2
The interval is formed by taking the central 1 − α
posterior probability interval. This leaves α/2 posterior
probability in each omitted tail. The exception
is for x = 0n where the lower (upper) limits are
modified to avoid the undesirable result that the
coverage probability Cp n → 0 as p → 0 or 1.
The actual endpoints of the interval need to be
numerically computed. This is very easy to do using
softwares such as Minitab, S-PLUS or Mathematica.
In Table 5 we have provided the limits for the case
of the Jeffreys prior for 7 ≤ n ≤ 30.
The endpoints of the Jeffreys prior interval are
the α/2 and 1−α/2 quantiles of the Betax+1/2 n−
x + 1/2 distribution. The psychological resistance
among some to using the interval is because of the
inability to compute the endpoints at ease without
software.
We provide two avenues to resolving this problem.
One is Table 5 at the end of the paper. The second
is a computable approximation to the limits of the
Jeffreys prior interval, one that is computable with
just a normal table. This approximation is obtained
after some algebra from the general approximation
to a Beta quantile given in page 945 in Abramowitz
and Stegun (1970).
The lower limit of the 1001 − α% Jeffreys prior
interval is approximately
x + 1/2
n + 1 + n − x + 1/2e2ω − 1 (9)
where
ω = κ
4pˆq/n ˆ + κ2 − 3/6n2
4pˆqˆ
+ 1/2 − ˆp ˆpqˆκ2 + 2 − 1/n
6n ˆpqˆ2
The upper limit may be approximated by the same
expression with κ replaced by −κ in ω. The simple
approximation given above is remarkably accurate.
Berry (1996, page 222) suggests using a simpler normal
approximation, but this will not be sufficiently
accurate unless npˆ1 − ˆp is rather large.