What does mode_compute do?

Estimation ML/Bayesian estimation
1

I have a very basic question: What is the purpose of mode_compute in the estimation command? How is it related to characterizing the posterior distribution? And how is the mode related to the mean of the posterior distribution?

Thanks!

2

Because the posterior tends to be asymptotically normal, characterizing the proposal distribution of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm with a normal approximation to the posterior mode is often a good starting point. Mode-compute is about finding the posterior mode for this.