Bayesian Analysis of the Van Baaren Model for Paired Comparison

The technique of paired comparison is being commonly studied these days because of its attractive applications for the comparison of several objects, simultaneously. This technique permits the ranking of the objects by means of a score, which reflects the merit of the items on a linear scale. The present study is concerned with the Bayesian analysis of a paired comparison model, namely the van Baaren model VI using the informative and the conjugate priors. For this purpose, an inclusive elicitation technique to evaluate the hyperparameters of the prior distributions has also been elaborated. The joint posterior distribution for the parameters of the model, their marginal distributions and their inferences are obtained via programming in the SAS package. The model is also tested for its appropriateness.