Related papers: Nonasymptotic CLT and Error Bounds for Two-Time-Sc…
The question of whether the central limit theorem (CLT) holds for the total number of edges in exponential random graph models (ERGMs) in the subcritical region of parameters has remained an open problem. In this paper, we establish the…
This paper develops asymptotic theory for quantile estimation via stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with a constant learning rate. The quantile loss function is neither smooth nor strongly convex. Beyond conventional perspectives and…
Approximating the solution of the nonlinear filtering problem with Gaussian mixtures has been a very popular method since the 1970s. However, the vast majority of such approximations are introduced in an ad-hoc manner without theoretical…
Recent progress in reinforcement learning has led to remarkable performance in a range of applications, but its deployment in high-stakes settings remains quite rare. One reason is a limited understanding of the behavior of reinforcement…
Given a finite metric space $(X\cup Y, \mathbf{d})$ the $k$-median problem is to find a set of $k$ centers $C\subseteq Y$ that minimizes $\sum_{p\in X} \min_{c\in C} \mathbf{d}(p,c)$. In general metrics, the best polynomial time algorithm…
We consider the dynamics of a linear stochastic approximation algorithm driven by Markovian noise, and derive finite-time bounds on the moments of the error, i.e., deviation of the output of the algorithm from the equilibrium point of an…
In this work, we study the asymptotic randomness of an algorithmic estimator of the saddle point of a globally convex-concave and locally strongly-convex strongly-concave objective. Specifically, we show that the averaged iterates of a…
Stochastic approximation is a powerful class of algorithms with celebrated success. However, a large body of previous analysis focuses on stochastic approximations driven by contractive operators, which is not applicable in some important…
We consider a family of parallel methods for constrained optimization based on projected gradient descents along individual coordinate directions. In the case of polyhedral feasible sets, local convergence towards a regular solution occurs…
In this paper, we obtain the Berry-Esseen bound for multivariate normal approximation for the Polyak-Ruppert averaged iterates of the linear stochastic approximation (LSA) algorithm with decreasing step size. Moreover, we prove the…
We prove a central limit theorem applicable to one dimensional stochastic approximation algorithms that converge to a point where the error terms of the algorithm do not vanish. We show how this applies to a certain class of these…
We analyze the fluctuations of incomplete $U$-statistics over a triangular array of independent random variables. We give criteria for a Central Limit Theorem (CLT, for short) to hold in the sense that we prove that an appropriately scaled…
In this paper, we are concerned with a non-asymptotic analysis of sampling algorithms used in nonconvex optimization. In particular, we obtain non-asymptotic estimates in Wasserstein-1 and Wasserstein-2 distances for a popular class of…
Central limit theorems (CLTs) for high-dimensional random vectors with dimension possibly growing with the sample size have received a lot of attention in the recent times. Chernozhukov et al. (2017) proved a Berry--Esseen type result for…
Policy evaluation in reinforcement learning is often conducted using two-timescale stochastic approximation, which results in various gradient temporal difference methods such as GTD(0), GTD2, and TDC. Here, we provide convergence rate…
We propose improved standard errors and an asymptotic distribution theory for two-way clustered panels. Our proposed estimator and theory allow for arbitrary serial dependence in the common time effects, which is excluded by existing…
The superiority of symplectic methods for stochastic Hamiltonian systems has been widely recognized, yet the probabilistic mechanism behind this superiority remains incompletely understood. This paper studies the superiority of symplectic…
We investigate the almost sure asymptotic properties of vector martingale transforms. Assuming some appropriate regularity conditions both on the increasing process and on the moments of the martingale, we prove that normalized moments of…
This work revisits the constant stepsize stochastic approximation algorithm for tracking a slowly moving target and obtains a bound for the tracking error that is valid for the entire time axis, using the Alekseev non-linear variation of…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) has been studied extensively over the past decades due to its simplicity and broad applicability in machine learning. In this work, we analyze the local behavior of gradient descent and stochastic gradient…