Abstract: | Suppose in a distribution problem, the sample information W is split into two pieces W 1 and W 2, and the parameters involved are split into two sets, π containing the parameters of interest, and θ containing nuisance parameters. It is shown that, under certain conditions, the posterior distribution of π does not depend on the data W 2, which can thus be ignored. This also has consequences for the predictive distribution of future (or missing) observations. In fact, under similar conditions, the predictive distributions using W or just W 1 are identical. |