Bayesian Social Science Statistics

Bayesian methods are increasingly being used in the social sciences, as the problems encountered lend themselves so naturally to the subjective qualities of Bayesian methodology. This book provides an accessible introduction to Bayesian methods, tailored specifically for social science students. It contains lots of real examples from political science, psychology, sociology, and economics, exercises in all chapters, and detailed descriptions of all the key concepts, without assuming any background in statistics beyond a first course. It features examples of how to implement the methods using WinBUGS – the most-widely used Bayesian analysis software in the world – and R – an open-source statistical software. The book is supported by a Website featuring WinBUGS and R code, and data sets.

This book provides a compact self-contained introduction to the theory and application of Bayesian statistical methods. The book is accessible to readers having a basic familiarity with probability, yet allows more advanced readers to quickly grasp the principles underlying Bayesian theory and methods. The examples and computer code allow the reader to understand and implement basic Bayesian data analyses using standard statistical models and to extend the standard models to specialized data analysis situations.

This book introduces key ideas of Bayesian sampling methods, Bayesian estimation, and selection of the prior. This volume is designed for statisticians, engineers, doctors, and machine learning researchers.

The use of Bayesian statistics has grown significantly in recent years, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. Applied Bayesian Modelling is the follow-up to the author’s best selling book, Bayesian Statistical Modelling, and focuses on the potential applications of Bayesian techniques in a wide range of important topics in the social and health sciences.