证明最优决策树在高维回归与分类中具有统计最优性
On the Statistical Optimality of Optimal Decision Trees
- 基于经验局部Rademacher复杂度构建统一浓度框架
- 首次获得针对分段稀疏异质广义Besov空间的极小极大最优率
- 适用于稀疏、异质平滑等实际结构,支持重尾噪声鲁棒性
尽管全局最优经验风险最小化(ERM)决策树在计算上已可行且表现优异,但其统计性能的严格理论保障仍有限。本文在随机设计下,为高维回归与分类中的ERM树建立了完整的统计理论。首先,通过新颖的统一浓度框架(基于经验局部Rademacher复杂度),推导出精确的极值不等式,量化了以最多L个叶节点构成的树所能达到的最佳近似精度与模型可解释性的权衡。其次,我们定义了一个新函数类——分段稀疏异质各向异性Besov(PSHAB)空间,该空间显式捕捉实践中常见的三个特性:稀疏性、各向异性光滑性和空间异质性,并在该类上获得了极小极大最优率。虽然主要结果基于次高斯假设,我们也给出了在重尾噪声下的鲁棒保证。这些成果为ERM树的最优性提供了理论基础,并引入了可广泛应用于其他高度自适应数据驱动方法的经验过程工具。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
While globally optimal empirical risk minimization (ERM) decision trees have become computationally feasible and empirically successful, rigorous theoretical guarantees for their statistical performance remain limited. In this work, we develop a comprehensive statistical theory for ERM trees under random design in both high-dimensional regression and classification. We first establish sharp oracle inequalities that bound the excess risk of the ERM estimator relative to the best possible approximation achievable by any tree with at most $L$ leaves, thereby characterizing the interpretability-accuracy trade-off. We derive these results using a novel uniform concentration framework based on empirically localized Rademacher complexity. Furthermore, we derive minimax optimal rates over a novel function class: the piecewise sparse heterogeneous anisotropic Besov (PSHAB) space. This space explicitly captures three key structural features encountered in practice: sparsity, anisotropic smoothness, and spatial heterogeneity. While our main results are established under sub-Gaussianity, we also provide robust guarantees that hold under heavy-tailed noise settings. Together, these findings provide a principled foundation for the optimality of ERM trees and introduce empirical process tools broadly applicable to other highly adaptive, data-driven procedures.
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