© 1999 by Biometrika Trust
Beyond accept-reject sampling
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Montreal, PO Box 6128, Station 'centre-ville', Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3C 3J7 E-mail: perronf@dms.umontreal.ca
We propose a new estimator for estimating a quantity µ via Monte Carlo simulations, where µ=
dP and P is the target probability measure. The new estimator outperforms the usual accept-reject algorithm in terms of reducing the variance. Properties of the estimator are derived. A new Rao-Blackwellised version of the estimator is also produced, but this version requires enormous computing time. Numerical results are provided.
Key Words: accept-reject sampling; importance sampling; Rao-Blackwell theorem