14,850 research outputs found
Estimating Sequential-move Games by a Recursive Conditioning Simulator
Sequential decision-making is a noticeable feature of strategic interactions among agents. The full estimation of sequential games, however, has been challenging due to the sheer computational burden, especially when the game is large and asymmetric. In this paper, I propose an estimation method for discrete choice sequential games that is computationally feasible, easy-to-implement, and eĀ¢ cient, by modifying the Geweke-Hajivassiliou-Keane (GHK) simulator, the most widely used probit simulator. I show that the recursive nature of the GHK simulator is easily dovetailed with the sequential structure of strategic interactions.
Stochastic models of evidence accumulation in changing environments
Organisms and ecological groups accumulate evidence to make decisions.
Classic experiments and theoretical studies have explored this process when the
correct choice is fixed during each trial. However, we live in a constantly
changing world. What effect does such impermanence have on classical results
about decision making? To address this question we use sequential analysis to
derive a tractable model of evidence accumulation when the correct option
changes in time. Our analysis shows that ideal observers discount prior
evidence at a rate determined by the volatility of the environment, and the
dynamics of evidence accumulation is governed by the information gained over an
average environmental epoch. A plausible neural implementation of an optimal
observer in a changing environment shows that, in contrast to previous models,
neural populations representing alternate choices are coupled through
excitation. Our work builds a bridge between statistical decision making in
volatile environments and stochastic nonlinear dynamics.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figure
Estimation of Finite Sequential Games
I study the estimation of finite sequential games with perfect information. The major challenge in estimation is computation of high-dimensional truncated integration whose domain is complicated by strategic interaction. I show that this complication resolves when unobserved off-the-equilibrium-path strategies are controlled for. Separately evaluating the likelihood contribution of each subgame perfect strategy profile that rationalizes the observed outcome allows the use of the GHK simulator, the most widely used importance-sampling probit simulator. Monte Carlo experiments demonstrate the performance and robustness of the proposed method, and confirm that misspecification of the decision order leads to underestimation of strategic effect.Inference In Discrete Games; Sequential Games; Monte Carlo Integration; GHK Simulator; Subgame Perfection; Perfect Information
Identifying the consequences of dynamic treatment strategies: A decision-theoretic overview
We consider the problem of learning about and comparing the consequences of
dynamic treatment strategies on the basis of observational data. We formulate
this within a probabilistic decision-theoretic framework. Our approach is
compared with related work by Robins and others: in particular, we show how
Robins's 'G-computation' algorithm arises naturally from this
decision-theoretic perspective. Careful attention is paid to the mathematical
and substantive conditions required to justify the use of this formula. These
conditions revolve around a property we term stability, which relates the
probabilistic behaviours of observational and interventional regimes. We show
how an assumption of 'sequential randomization' (or 'no unmeasured
confounders'), or an alternative assumption of 'sequential irrelevance', can be
used to infer stability. Probabilistic influence diagrams are used to simplify
manipulations, and their power and limitations are discussed. We compare our
approach with alternative formulations based on causal DAGs or potential
response models. We aim to show that formulating the problem of assessing
dynamic treatment strategies as a problem of decision analysis brings clarity,
simplicity and generality.Comment: 49 pages, 15 figure
WARP: Wavelets with adaptive recursive partitioning for multi-dimensional data
Effective identification of asymmetric and local features in images and other
data observed on multi-dimensional grids plays a critical role in a wide range
of applications including biomedical and natural image processing. Moreover,
the ever increasing amount of image data, in terms of both the resolution per
image and the number of images processed per application, requires algorithms
and methods for such applications to be computationally efficient. We develop a
new probabilistic framework for multi-dimensional data to overcome these
challenges through incorporating data adaptivity into discrete wavelet
transforms, thereby allowing them to adapt to the geometric structure of the
data while maintaining the linear computational scalability. By exploiting a
connection between the local directionality of wavelet transforms and recursive
dyadic partitioning on the grid points of the observation, we obtain the
desired adaptivity through adding to the traditional Bayesian wavelet
regression framework an additional layer of Bayesian modeling on the space of
recursive partitions over the grid points. We derive the corresponding
inference recipe in the form of a recursive representation of the exact
posterior, and develop a class of efficient recursive message passing
algorithms for achieving exact Bayesian inference with a computational
complexity linear in the resolution and sample size of the images. While our
framework is applicable to a range of problems including multi-dimensional
signal processing, compression, and structural learning, we illustrate its work
and evaluate its performance in the context of 2D and 3D image reconstruction
using real images from the ImageNet database. We also apply the framework to
analyze a data set from retinal optical coherence tomography
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