将贝叶斯深度学习用于离散选择建模,兼顾预测力与经济推断可解释性。
Bayesian Deep Learning for Discrete Choice
- 设计可对接贝叶斯推断的深度模型,数据少时退化为行为假设以防过拟合
- 在纽约和瑞士数据上验证,预测准确率提升且边际替代率区间覆盖率达标
- 适合需要同时做精准预测和可靠经济推断的研究者,如交通政策评估
离散选择模型(DCMs)广泛应用于交通出行、政治选举和消费者偏好分析等场景,在应用计量经济学中用于推断关键经济变量(如边际替代率),而不仅限于新数据的预测。传统DCMs虽具高可解释性并支持点估计与区间估计,但在预测任务中表现常逊于深度学习(DL)模型。尽管深度学习具有预测优势,但因缺乏可解释性、参数估计不稳定及不确定性量化方法缺失,在离散选择领域仍难广泛应用。本文提出一种专为近似贝叶斯推断(如随机梯度朗之万动力学,SGLD)设计的深度学习架构。该模型在数据有限时会退化为行为驱动的假设,有效缓解欠定情形下的过拟合与不稳定性,而在数据充足时又能灵活捕捉复杂非线性关系。通过蒙特卡洛模拟研究,评估了其在预测指标(如样本外平衡准确率)和推断指标(如边际替代率区间估计的实证覆盖率)上的表现。此外,还基于纽约市实际出行数据和广为人知的瑞士火车选择情境偏好数据进行了两个实证案例分析。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Discrete choice models (DCMs) are used to analyze individual decision-making in contexts such as transportation choices, political elections, and consumer preferences. DCMs play a central role in applied econometrics by enabling inference on key economic variables, such as marginal rates of substitution, rather than focusing solely on predicting choices on new unlabeled data. However, while traditional DCMs offer high interpretability and support for point and interval estimation of economic quantities, these models often underperform in predictive tasks compared to deep learning (DL) models. Despite their predictive advantages, DL models remain largely underutilized in discrete choice due to concerns about their lack of interpretability, unstable parameter estimates, and the absence of established methods for uncertainty quantification. Here, we introduce a deep learning model architecture specifically designed to integrate with approximate Bayesian inference methods, such as Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD). Our proposed model collapses to behaviorally informed hypotheses when data is limited, mitigating overfitting and instability in underspecified settings while retaining the flexibility to capture complex nonlinear relationships when sufficient data is available. We demonstrate our approach using SGLD through a Monte Carlo simulation study, evaluating both predictive metrics--such as out-of-sample balanced accuracy--and inferential metrics--such as empirical coverage for marginal rates of substitution interval estimates. Additionally, we present results from two empirical case studies: one using revealed mode choice data in NYC, and the other based on the widely used Swiss train choice stated preference data.
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