Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 208 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The support condition for importance sampling is missing from the printed assertion. Assume , , and for -almost every . For a proposal , rejection has conditional probability . Its unconditional probability is , so the conditional density of a rejected draw isThus the rejected-draw weight is precisely , andConditionally on any positive rejection count among independent proposals, the rejected locations have this iid conditional density. Henceis an unbiased estimator conditionally on , and therefore also conditionally on the event . This is importance sampling from the rejected-proposal distribution.
The nonstrict assumption alone does not suffice: the rejected distribution may completely miss part of the target support. For example, let be uniform on , , , and . All rejected proposals lie in , where , so the displayed estimator is always , whereas . This remains a counterexample after conditioning on . A strict envelope, such as choosing larger than the essential supremum of , repairs the missing support condition. Near-equality can still give high-variance weights, even when it remains an unbiased estimator.
Support condition for importance sampling 2026-10-06
An importance sampling proposal must be positive wherever the target-weighted integrand can contribute. The usual sufficient condition is that the target probability is absolutely continuous with respect to . Otherwise multiplying observed draws by cannot recover a missing part of the integral. A strict rejection envelope supplies this condition for the rejected-proposal distribution.