auxiliary likelihood-based approximate Bayesian computation in state-space models

With Gael Martin, Brendan McCabe, David T. Frazier, and Worapree Maneesoonthorn, we arXived (and submitted) a strongly revised version of our earlier paper. We begin by demonstrating that reduction to a set of sufficient statistics of reduced dimension relative to the sample size is infeasible for most state-space models, hence calling for the use of partial posteriors in such settings. Then we give conditions [like parameter identification] under which ABC methods are Bayesian consistent, when using an auxiliary model to produce summaries, either as MLEs or [more efficiently] scores. Indeed, for the order of accuracy required by the ABC perspective, scores are equivalent to MLEs but are computed much faster than MLEs. Those conditions happen to to be weaker than those found in the recent papers of Li and Fearnhead (2016) and Creel et al.  (2015).  In particular as we make no assumption about the limiting distributions of the summary statistics. We also tackle the dimensionality curse that plagues ABC techniques by numerically exhibiting the improved accuracy brought by looking at marginal rather than joint modes. That is, by matching individual parameters via the corresponding scalar score of the integrated auxiliary likelihood rather than matching on the multi-dimensional score statistics. The approach is illustrated on realistically complex models, namely a (latent) Ornstein-Ulenbeck process with a discrete time linear Gaussian approximation is adopted and a Kalman filter auxiliary likelihood. And a square root volatility process with an auxiliary likelihood associated with a Euler discretisation and the augmented unscented Kalman filter.  In our experiments, we compared our auxiliary based  technique to the two-step approach of Fearnhead and Prangle (in the Read Paper of 2012), exhibiting improvement for the examples analysed therein. Somewhat predictably, an important challenge in this approach that is common with the related techniques of indirect inference and efficient methods of moments, is the choice of a computationally efficient and accurate auxiliary model. But most of the current ABC literature discusses the role and choice of the summary statistics, which amounts to the same challenge, while missing the regularity provided by score functions of our auxiliary models.