A Note on the Prior Distributions of Weibull Parameters for the Reliability Function

Abstract In Bayesian Inference it is often desirable to have a posterior density reflecting mainly the information from sample data. To achieve this purpose it is important to employ prior densities which add little information to the sample. We have in the literature many such prior densities, for example, Jeffreys (1967 Jeffreys , H. ( 1967 ). Theory of Probability , 3rd rev. ed. . London : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]), Lindley (1956 Lindley , D. V. ( 1956 ). On a measure of the information provided by an experiment . Ann. Mathemat. Statist. 27 : 986 – 1005 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); (1961 Lindley , D. V. ( 1961 ). The use of prior probability distributions in statistical inference and decisions . In: Neyman , J. , ed. Proceedings of the Fourth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability . Vol. 1. Berkeley : University of California Press , pp. 453 – 468 . [Google Scholar]), Hartigan (1964 Hartigan , J. ( 1964 ). Invariant priors distributions . Ann. Mathemat. Statist. 35 : 836 – 845 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Bernardo (1979 Bernardo , J. M. ( 1979 ). Reference posterior distributions for Bayesian inference . J. Roy. Statist. Soc. 41 ( 2 ): 113 – 147 . [Google Scholar]), Zellner (1984 Zellner , A. ( 1984 ). Maximal Data Information Prior Distributions, Basic Issues in Econometrics . Chicago : University of Chicago Press . [Google Scholar]), Tibshirani (1989 Tibshirani , R. ( 1989 ). Noninformative priors for one parameters of many . Biometrika 76 : 604 – 608 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), etc. In the present article, we compare the posterior densities of the reliability function by using Jeffreys, the maximal data information (Zellner, 1984 Zellner , A. ( 1984 ). Maximal Data Information Prior Distributions, Basic Issues in Econometrics . Chicago : University of Chicago Press . [Google Scholar]), Tibshirani's, and reference priors for the reliability function R(t) in a Weibull distribution. Keywords: Fisher matrixNon informative priorsPosterior distributionReliability functionWeibull distributionMathematics Subject Classification: Primary 62FxxSecondary 62F15