With a Poisson-gamma conjugacy with unequal exposures model, and , so the Bühlmann–Straub credibility factor is . The credibility estimate simplifies to , exactly the posterior mean and hence the Bayes estimator under squared error loss. The agreement is exact because that posterior mean is already affine in the exposure-weighted data.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 31 4 b Solution 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.