Lower Bounds on the Bayes Risk of the Bayesian BTL Model With Applications to Comparison Graphs

We consider the problem of aggregating pairwise comparisons to obtain a consensus ranking order over a collection of objects. We use the popular Bradley–Terry–Luce (BTL) model, which allows us to probabilistically describe pairwise comparisons between objects. In particular, we employ the Bayesian BTL model, which allows for meaningful prior assumptions and to cope with situations where the number of objects is large and the number of comparisons between some objects is small or even zero. For the conventional Bayesian BTL model, we derive information-theoretic lower bounds on the Bayes risk of estimators for norm-based distortion functions. We compare the information-theoretic lower bound with the Bayesian Cramér–Rao lower bound we derive for the case when the Bayes risk is the mean squared error. We illustrate the utility of the bounds through simulations by comparing them with the error performance of an expectation-maximization-based inference algorithm proposed for the Bayesian BTL model. We draw parallels between pairwise comparisons in the BTL model and interplayer games represented as edges in an Erdős–Rényi graph and analyze the effect of various graph structures on the lower bounds. We also extend the information-theoretic and Bayesian Cramér–Rao lower bounds to the more general Bayesian BTL model, which takes into account home-field advantage.