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ABSTRACT
Bayesian methods have been used quite extensively in recent years for solving small
area estimation problems. Particularly eective in this regard has been the hierarchical
or empirical Bayes approach which is especially suitable for a systematic connection of
local areas through models. However, the development to date has mainly concentrated
on continuous-valued variates. Often the survey data are discrete or categorical, so that
hierarchical or empirical Bayes techniques designed for continuous variates are inappropriate. For a unied analysis of both discrete and continuous data, this paper considers
hierarchical Bayes generalized linear models. A general theorem is provided which ensures the propriety of posteriors under diuse priors. This result is then extended to
the case of spatial generalized linear models. The hierarchical Bayes procedure is implemented via Markov chain Monte Carlo integration techniques. Two examples (one
featuring spatial correlation structure) are given to illustrate the general method.
KEY WORDS: Hierarchical model; Markov chain Monte Carlo; Posterior propriety;
Spatial statistics.

1. INTRODUCTION
Bayesian methods have been used quite extensively in recent years for solving small
area estimation problems. Particularly eective in this regard have been the hierarchical and empirical Bayes (HB or EB) approaches, which are especially suitable for
a systematic connection of local areas through the model. For the general theory as
well as specic applications of the HB and EB methods for small area estimation, the
reader is referred to Fay and Herriot (1979), Ghosh and Meeden (1986), Ghosh and
Lahiri (1987), Stroud (1987), Prasad and Rao (1990), Datta and Ghosh (1991), Stroud
(1991), and Ghosh and Lahiri (1992), among others. Ghosh and Rao (1994) contains a
review of many of these results.
However, the development to date has mainly concentrated on continuous-valued
variates. Often the survey data are discrete or categorical, for which the HB or EB
analysis suitable for continuous variates is not appropriate. Recently, some work has