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ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/iii/paper-31/4/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 31 4 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Conditional on , summing the individual independent Poisson counts gives . The between-year conditional independence makes the likelihood functionMultiplying by the gamma distribution prior density, proportional to , gives the Poisson-gamma conjugacy with unequal exposures:For an action , the posterior squared-error loss decomposes asHence the Bayes estimator under squared error loss is the posterior mean, givingFuture counts are independent of the observed years conditional on , so the law of total expectation then gives the posterior predictive expected countThe Bayesian and credibility estimates coincide exactly. This exact Bühlmann–Straub credibility for Poisson-gamma counts occurs because the posterior mean is already affine in the exposure-weighted experience, and therefore belongs to the class over which the credibility estimate minimizes mean squared error.
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