Keeping the powers and exponentials of and in the joint kernel gives the two inverse-gamma distributions, using the printed shape–scale convention:
Indeed their kernels are and . With positive measurement variances and generic continuously drawn latent values, the two scale parameters are positive almost surely. Together with (a),(b), these are all formal full conditional updates.
There is, however, no joint posterior probability distribution to sample under the stated priors. Integrate out the intrinsic first. For fixed , the observational marginal density is
where is the centred normal density of variance . Substitute . Dominated convergence gives
The convergence is uniform on any compact interval and any compact positive interval, since the normal densities are uniformly bounded and continuous there. Hence some such region has for all sufficiently small , and
Integrating over those positive-measure intervals proves that the full normalizing constant is infinite. If all , the boundary also gives a positive marginal likelihood and a divergent integral at fixed . Thus , even though its generic full conditionals are proper. Apparent stability of a simulated chain cannot establish a nonexistent stationary probability law.
A valid repair that preserves direct sampling is to replace the two log-flat priors by independent proper and , with all four constants positive. The normal and truncated-normal updates remain as above, while
With positive , the flat prior is then harmless: after integrating it out, the Gaussian measurement likelihood is bounded uniformly over the latent shifts and the scales, and the remaining proper priors integrate to one. A proper prior on is also possible.
For this repaired model, initialize , and finite . Repeatedly choose one of the coordinates with fixed positive probabilities and redraw from its full conditional using the latest values. This Random-scan Gibbs sampler preserves the proper target and satisfies detailed balance: for each coordinate, both forward and reverse flows equal the marginal density of the remaining coordinates times the product of the two conditional densities. A systematic full sweep is another invariant scheme, though it need not itself be reversible.
Run several dispersed chains; inspect traces of both scales, , representative latent values and the log posterior. Assess rank-normalized split , autocorrelation, and the effective sample size of a Markov chain, and extend runs until relevant Monte Carlo errors are sufficiently small. Scale–latent dependence can cause slow mixing, so diagnostics must include boundary exploration and alternative initializations. Keep post-warmup draws without automatic thinning. These are convergence checks for the repaired posterior; the printed model admits only the formal update algorithm, not a valid posterior-sampling interpretation.
Every move can be drawn from a full conditional distribution, producing a Gibbs sampler with acceptance probability one. Write and . First update independently
and then
Let have rows and . Update the linear regression coefficients jointly by
and update
Finally, the flat positive variance priors give the following full conditionals, each an inverse-gamma distribution:
A systematic sweep in the displayed order, using the newly sampled values immediately, defines the chain. The shapes are positive for ; full column rank of is also required.
Scaled inverse chi-squared distribution Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-06
The scaled inverse chi-squared distribution has density
It is an inverse-gamma distribution under a change of parameters.