JMLR

Mixing times of data-augmentation Gibbs samplers for high-dimensional probit regression

Authors
Giacomo Zanella Filippo Ascolani
Research Topics
Machine Learning High-Dimensional Statistics
Paper Information
  • Journal:
    Journal of Machine Learning Research
  • Added to Tracker:
    Jul 06, 2026
Abstract

We investigate the convergence properties of popular data-augmentation samplers for Baye\-sian probit regression. Leveraging recent results on Gibbs samplers for log-concave targets, we provide simple and explicit non-asymptotic bounds on the associated mixing times (in Kullback-Leibler divergence). The bounds depend explicitly on the design matrix and the prior precision, while they hold uniformly over the vector of responses. We specialize the results for different regimes of statistical interest, when both the number of data points $n$ and parameters $p$ are large: in particular we identify scenarios where the mixing times remain bounded as $n,p\to\infty$, and ones where they do not. The results are shown to be tight (in the worst case with respect to the responses) and provide guidance on choices of prior distributions that provably lead to fast mixing. An empirical analysis based on coupling techniques suggests that the bounds are effective in predicting practically observed behaviours.

Author Details
Giacomo Zanella
Author
Filippo Ascolani
Author
Research Topics & Keywords
Machine Learning
Research Area
High-Dimensional Statistics
Research Area
Citation Information
APA Format
Giacomo Zanella & Filippo Ascolani . Mixing times of data-augmentation Gibbs samplers for high-dimensional probit regression. Journal of Machine Learning Research .
BibTeX Format
@article{paper1370,
  title = { Mixing times of data-augmentation Gibbs samplers for high-dimensional probit regression },
  author = { Giacomo Zanella and Filippo Ascolani },
  journal = { Journal of Machine Learning Research },
  url = { https://www.jmlr.org/papers/v27/25-2192.html }
}