Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2005/iii/paper-43/4/i/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 43 4 i Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-20
Let . The conditional joint likelihood function of the observed counts isThe prior is a gamma distribution with shape two and rate . Multiplication by its density gives the unnormalized posterior density . Normalizing with the gamma function yieldsThus Poisson-gamma conjugacy gives . Conditional on and the past data, the next count has mean , so the law of total expectation givesWith and prior mean , this is exactlyHere , , and the credibility factor increases to one as the number of observed years grows. The denominator uses the prior rate and total exposure ; it does not add two to the exposure when adding the prior shape.
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