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bayesian-estimation

separate

This skill covers Bayesian estimation and inference in quantitative social science. Use when the user is specifying priors, running MCMC, diagnosing chain convergence, or reporting posterior summaries — including hierarchical models, Bayesian structural models, and small-sample settings where priors regularize. Triggers on "Bayesian estimation", "Bayesian inference", "MCMC", "Markov chain Monte Carlo", "Stan", "PyMC", "NumPyro", "prior", "posterior", "credible interval", "Bayesian structural", "Bayesian BLP", "Bayesian DSGE", "hierarchical model", "random effects Bayesian", "posterior predictive check", "Bayes factor", "prior predictive check", "NUTS", "HMC", "Hamiltonian Monte Carlo", "R-hat", "rhat", "effective sample size", "ESS", "Bayesian calibration", "posterior distribution", "prior elicitation", "weakly informative prior", "brms", "rstanarm", "cmdstanpy", "pymc", "arviz".

When to use

• Specifying priors and setting up a Bayesian model in Stan, PyMC, NumPyro, brms, or rstanarm
• Running MCMC and diagnosing R-hat, ESS, divergences, or trace plots
• Implementing hierarchical (multilevel) models with partial pooling
• Adding Bayesian inference to a structural model (BLP, dynamic discrete choice, DSGE)
• Reporting credible intervals, posterior predictive checks, or model comparison statistics
• Eliciting priors from calibration targets or literature benchmarks
• Debugging sampling pathologies: divergences, low acceptance rates, poor mixing
• The model is large-N and well-identified (frequentist MLE/GMM is more efficient and faster)

When not to use

• Large-N and well-identified models
• Pure structural estimation without Bayesian components
• Classical causal inference

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