Leave Pima Indians Alone: Binary Regression as a Benchmark for Bayesian Computation

Abstract

Whenever a new approach to perform Bayesian computation is introduced, a common practice is to showcase this approach on a binary regression model and datasets of moderate size. This paper discusses to which extent this practice is sound. It also reviews the current state of the art of Bayesian computation, using binary regression as a running example. Both sampling-based algorithms (importance sampling, MCMC and SMC) and fast approximations (Laplace, VB and EP) are covered. Extensive numerical results are provided, and are used to make recommendations to both end users and Bayesian computation experts. Implications for other problems (variable selection) and other models are also discussed.