BSL: An R Package for Efficient Parameter Estimation for Simulation-Based Models via Bayesian Synthetic Likelihood

Abstract

Bayesian synthetic likelihood (BSL; Price, Drovandi, Lee, and Nott 2018) is a popular method for estimating the parameter posterior distribution for complex statistical models and stochastic processes that possess a computationally intractable likelihood function. Instead of evaluating the likelihood, BSL approximates the likelihood of a judiciously chosen summary statistic of the data via model simulation and density estimation. Compared to alternative methods such as approximate Bayesian computation (ABC), BSL requires little tuning and requires less model simulations than ABC when the chosen summary statistic is high-dimensional. The original synthetic likelihood relies on a multivariate normal approximation of the intractable likelihood, where the mean and covariance are estimated by simulation. An extension of BSL considers replacing the sample covariance with a penalized covariance estimator to reduce the number of required model simulations. Further, a semi-parametric approach has been developed to relax the normality assumption. Finally, another extension of BSL aims to develop a more robust synthetic likelihood estimator while acknowledging there might be model misspecification. In this paper, we present the R package BSL that amalgamates the aforementioned methods and more into a single, easy-to-use and coherent piece of software. The package also includes several examples to illustrate use of the package and the utility of the methods.