Centres Of Excellence

To focus on new and emerging areas of research and education, Centres of Excellence have been established within the Institute. These ‘virtual' centres draw on resources from its stakeholders, and interact with them to enhance core competencies

Read More >>

Faculty

Faculty members at IIMB generate knowledge through cutting-edge research in all functional areas of management that would benefit public and private sector companies, and government and society in general.

Read More >>

IIMB Management Review

Journal of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

IIM Bangalore offers Degree-Granting Programmes, a Diploma Programme, Certificate Programmes and Executive Education Programmes and specialised courses in areas such as entrepreneurship and public policy.

Read More >>

About IIMB

The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) believes in building leaders through holistic, transformative and innovative education

Read More >>

Forecasting Elections from Partial Information Using a Bayesian Model for a Multinomial Sequence of Data

Soudeep Deb, Rishideep Roy and Shubhabrata Das
Journal Name
Journal of Forecasting
Journal Publication
others
Publication Year
2024
Journal Publications Functional Area
Decision Sciences
Publication Date
Vol. 43(6), September 2024, Pg. 1814-1834
Abstract

Predicting the winner of an election is of importance to multiple stakeholders. To formulate the problem, we consider an independent sequence of categorical data with a finite number of possible outcomes in each. The data is assumed to be observed in batches, each of which is based on a large number of such trials and can be modeled via multinomial distributions. We postulate that the multinomial probabilities of the categories vary randomly depending on batches. The challenge is to predict accurately on cumulative data based on data up to a few batches as early as possible. On the theoretical front, we first derive sufficient conditions of asymptotic normality of the estimates of the multinomial cell probabilities and present corresponding suitable transformations. Then, in a Bayesian framework, we consider hierarchical priors using multivariate normal and inverse Wishart distributions and establish the posterior convergence. The desired inference is arrived at using these results and ensuing Gibbs sampling. The methodology is demonstrated with election data from two different settings—one from India and the other from the United States. Additional insights of the effectiveness of the proposed methodology are attained through a simulation study.

Forecasting Elections from Partial Information Using a Bayesian Model for a Multinomial Sequence of Data

Author(s) Name: Soudeep Deb, Rishideep Roy and Shubhabrata Das
Journal Name: Journal of Forecasting
Volume: Vol. 43(6), September 2024, Pg. 1814-1834
Year of Publication: 2024
Abstract:

Predicting the winner of an election is of importance to multiple stakeholders. To formulate the problem, we consider an independent sequence of categorical data with a finite number of possible outcomes in each. The data is assumed to be observed in batches, each of which is based on a large number of such trials and can be modeled via multinomial distributions. We postulate that the multinomial probabilities of the categories vary randomly depending on batches. The challenge is to predict accurately on cumulative data based on data up to a few batches as early as possible. On the theoretical front, we first derive sufficient conditions of asymptotic normality of the estimates of the multinomial cell probabilities and present corresponding suitable transformations. Then, in a Bayesian framework, we consider hierarchical priors using multivariate normal and inverse Wishart distributions and establish the posterior convergence. The desired inference is arrived at using these results and ensuing Gibbs sampling. The methodology is demonstrated with election data from two different settings—one from India and the other from the United States. Additional insights of the effectiveness of the proposed methodology are attained through a simulation study.