On the estimation of partially observed continuous-time Markov chains

Motivated by the increasing use of discrete-state Markov processes across applied disciplines, a Metropolis–Hastings sampling algorithm is proposed for a partially observed process. Current approaches, both classical and Bayesian, have relied on imputing the missing parts of the process and working with a complete likelihood. However, from a Bayesian perspective, the use of latent variables is not necessary and exploiting the observed likelihood function, combined with a suitable Markov chain Monte Carlo method, results in an accurate and efficient approach. A comprehensive comparison with simulated and real data sets demonstrate our approach when compared with alternatives available in the literature.