13,159 research outputs found
Geometrically stopped Markovian random growth processes and Pareto tails
Many empirical studies document power law behavior in size distributions of
economic interest such as cities, firms, income, and wealth. One mechanism for
generating such behavior combines independent and identically distributed
Gaussian additive shocks to log-size with a geometric age distribution. We
generalize this mechanism by allowing the shocks to be non-Gaussian (but
light-tailed) and dependent upon a Markov state variable. Our main results
provide sharp bounds on tail probabilities, a simple equation determining
Pareto exponents, and comparative statics. We present two applications: we show
that (i) the tails of the wealth distribution in a heterogeneous-agent dynamic
general equilibrium model with idiosyncratic investment risk are Paretian, and
(ii) a random growth model for the population dynamics of Japanese
municipalities is consistent with the observed Pareto exponent but only after
allowing for Markovian dynamics
Tail bounds for all eigenvalues of a sum of random matrices
This work introduces the minimax Laplace transform method, a modification of
the cumulant-based matrix Laplace transform method developed in "User-friendly
tail bounds for sums of random matrices" (arXiv:1004.4389v6) that yields both
upper and lower bounds on each eigenvalue of a sum of random self-adjoint
matrices. This machinery is used to derive eigenvalue analogues of the
classical Chernoff, Bennett, and Bernstein bounds.
Two examples demonstrate the efficacy of the minimax Laplace transform. The
first concerns the effects of column sparsification on the spectrum of a matrix
with orthonormal rows. Here, the behavior of the singular values can be
described in terms of coherence-like quantities. The second example addresses
the question of relative accuracy in the estimation of eigenvalues of the
covariance matrix of a random process. Standard results on the convergence of
sample covariance matrices provide bounds on the number of samples needed to
obtain relative accuracy in the spectral norm, but these results only guarantee
relative accuracy in the estimate of the maximum eigenvalue. The minimax
Laplace transform argument establishes that if the lowest eigenvalues decay
sufficiently fast, on the order of (K^2*r*log(p))/eps^2 samples, where K is the
condition number of an optimal rank-r approximation to C, are sufficient to
ensure that the dominant r eigenvalues of the covariance matrix of a N(0, C)
random vector are estimated to within a factor of 1+-eps with high probability.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure, see also arXiv:1004.4389v
Sample average approximation with heavier tails II: localization in stochastic convex optimization and persistence results for the Lasso
We present exponential finite-sample nonasymptotic deviation inequalities for
the SAA estimator's near-optimal solution set over the class of stochastic
optimization problems with heavy-tailed random \emph{convex} functions in the
objective and constraints. Such setting is better suited for problems where a
sub-Gaussian data generating distribution is less expected, e.g., in stochastic
portfolio optimization. One of our contributions is to exploit \emph{convexity}
of the perturbed objective and the perturbed constraints as a property which
entails \emph{localized} deviation inequalities for joint feasibility and
optimality guarantees. This means that our bounds are significantly tighter in
terms of diameter and metric entropy since they depend only on the near-optimal
solution set but not on the whole feasible set. As a result, we obtain a much
sharper sample complexity estimate when compared to a general nonconvex
problem. In our analysis, we derive some localized deterministic perturbation
error bounds for convex optimization problems which are of independent
interest. To obtain our results, we only assume a metric regular convex
feasible set, possibly not satisfying the Slater condition and not having a
metric regular solution set. In this general setting, joint near feasibility
and near optimality are guaranteed. If in addition the set satisfies the Slater
condition, we obtain finite-sample simultaneous \emph{exact} feasibility and
near optimality guarantees (for a sufficiently small tolerance). Another
contribution of our work is to present, as a proof of concept of our localized
techniques, a persistent result for a variant of the LASSO estimator under very
weak assumptions on the data generating distribution.Comment: 34 pages. Some correction
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