Predictivistic characterizations of multivariate student-t models

De Finetti style theorems characterize models (predictive distributions) as mixtures of the likelihood function and the prior distribution, beginning from some judgment of invariance about observable quantities. The likelihood function generally has its functional form identified from invariance assumptions only. However, we need additional conditions on observable quantities (typically, assumptions on conditional expectations) to identify the prior distribution. In this paper, we consider some well-known invariance assumptions and establish additional conditions on observable quantities in order to obtain a predictivistic characterization of the multivariate and matrix-variate Student-t distributions as well as for the Student-t linear model. As a byproduct, a characterization for the Pearson type 11 distribution is provided. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.