Solved – What are examples of “flat priors”

prior

For example, for $p$ as the parameter to a binomial or bernoulli, or a Poisson, what would a flat prior $P$ be? What does it mean to be "flat" – does this refer to diffuse?

Best Answer

The term "flat" in reference to a prior generally means $f(\theta)\propto c$ over the support of $\theta$.

So a flat prior for $p$ in a Bernoulli would usually be interpreted to mean $U(0,1)$.

A flat prior for $\mu$ in a normal is an improper prior where $f(\mu)\propto c$ over the real line.

"Flat" is not necessarily synonymous with 'uninformative', nor does it have invariance to transformations of the parameter. For example, a flat prior on $\sigma$ in a normal effectively says that we think that $\sigma$ will be large, while a flat prior on $\log(\sigma)$ does not.

With flat priors, your conditional posterior will be proportional to the likelihood (possibly constrained to some interval/region if the prior was). (In this case MAP and ML will normally correspond, though if we're taking the flat prior over some region, it might change that.)

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