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Converting qualitative assessments to quantitative assumptions: Bayes’ rule and the pundit’s wager

When developing quantitative scenarios, it is necessary to choose parameter values to fit a particular story line, such as growth rates and resource-use efficiencies. This paper describes one approach to making such choices using Bayesian statistical reasoning to systematically combine data from a reference set (e.g., historical data) with qualitative assessments regarding the scenario.

Eric Kemp-Benedict / Published on 8 January 2010

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Citation

Kemp-Benedict, E. (2009). Converting qualitative assessments to quantitative assumptions: Bayes' rule and the pundit's wager. Kemp-Benedict, E. (2010). Converting qualitative assessments to quantitative assumptions: Bayes’ rule and the pundit’s wager. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 77(1): 167-171.

The result is a probability distribution, rather than a single value, reflecting the non-unique correspondence between a qualitative description of a scenario and its quantitative realization.

The paper also describes a simple software tool that implements the method.

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SEI author

Eric Kemp-Benedict
Eric Kemp-Benedict

SEI Affiliated Researcher

SEI US

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10.1016/j.techfore.2009.06.008 Closed access
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