“The new method circumvents the challenges associated with accurate evidence calculations by computing posterior odds ratios using Bayesian parameter estimation”
One paper leading to another, I had a look at Hee et al. 2015 paper on Bayes factor estimation. The “novelty” stands in introducing the model index as an extra parameter in a single model encompassing all models under comparison, the “new” parameterisation being in (θ,n) rather than in θ. With the distinction that the parameter θ is now made of the union of all parameters across all models. Which reminds us very much of Carlin and Chib (1995) approach to the problem. (Peter Green in his Biometrika (1995) paper on reversible jump MCMC uses instead a direct sum of parameter spaces.) The authors indeed suggest simulating jointly (θ,n) in an MCMC or nested sampling scheme. Rather than being updated by arbitrary transforms as in Carlin and Chib (1995) the useless parameters from the other models are kept constant… The goal being to estimate P(n|D) the marginal posterior on the model index, aka the posterior probability of model n.
Now, I am quite not certain keeping the other parameter constants is a valid move: given a uniform prior on n and an equally uniform proposal, the acceptance probability simplifies into the regular Metropolis-Hastings ratio for model n. Hence the move is valid within model n. If not, I presume the previous pair (θ⁰,n⁰) is repeated. Wait!, actually, this is slightly more elaborate: if a new value of n, m, is proposed, then the acceptance ratio involves the posteriors for both n⁰ and m, possibly only the likelihoods when the proposal is the prior. So the move will directly depend on the likelihood ratio in this simplified case, which indicates the scheme could be correct after all. Except that this neglects the measure theoretic subtleties that led to reversible jump symmetry and hence makes me wonder. In other words, it follows exactly the same pattern as reversible jump without the constraints of the latter… Free lunch, anyone?!
The latest [June] issue of 
Richard Everitt organises an afternoon workshop on Bayesian computation in 
