Open dataset and pipeline for realistic OPE research.
problem Lack of realistic and reproducible OPE experimental studies.
method Public logged bandit dataset and Python software.
result Enables experimental comparisons of OPE estimators.
This paper simplifies OPE in large state spaces using state abstractions.
problem Accurately evaluating policies offline in large state spaces.
method Developed a backward-model-irrelevance condition and an iterative state abstraction procedure.
result Deeply-abstracted states substantially simplify OPE sample complexity.
Develops deep jump learning for continuous treatment OPE.
problem Estimating mean outcomes under new treatment rules using historical data from different rules.
method Adaptive deep discretization of continuous treatment space using deep learning and multi-scale change point detection.
result Validated method through theoretical results, simulations, and real application to Warfarin Dosing.
We offer an experimental benchmark and empirical study for off-policy policy evaluation (OPE) in reinforcement learning, which is a key problem in many safety critical applications. Given the increasing interest in deploying learning-based methods, there has been a flurry of recent proposals for OPE method, leading to …
This paper bridges the gap between theoretical and practical OPE for bandit problems.
problem Estimating the value of a target policy from samples generated by different policies.
method Categorizing OPE situations based on evaluation policy properties, proposing a meta-algorithm.
result Meta-algorithm successfully bridges the gap between theoretical and practical OPE for bandit problems.
We propose a robust regression approach to off-policy evaluation (OPE) for contextual bandits. We frame OPE as a covariate-shift problem and leverage modern robust regression tools. Ours is a general approach that can be used to augment any existing OPE method that utilizes the direct method. When augmenting doubly rob…
New approach to off-policy evaluation connects causal graph to policy effects.
problem Evaluating policies using observational data from different policies.
method Formalizes off-policy evaluation within a causal graph framework.
result Identifies specific causal estimands and highlights necessary experimental data.
Online Platt Scaling adapts to varying data distributions.
problem Adapting Platt scaling to non-i.i.d. settings with distribution drift.
method Combines Platt scaling with online logistic regression and calibeating.
result OPS+calibeating method is guaranteed to be calibrated for adversarial outcomes.
New OPE estimator improves offline policy evaluation for large action spaces.
problem Existing OPE estimators fail with large action spaces, leading to extreme bias and variance.
method Proposes a new estimator using marginalized importance weights and action embeddings.
result Empirical performance improvement enables reliable OPE even with many actions.
Concept-driven OPE reduces variance in off-policy decision evaluation.
problem High variance in off-policy decision evaluation due to limited sample sizes.
method Integrating human-explainable concepts into OPE to reduce variance.
result Concept-based OPE estimators remain unbiased and reduce variance when concepts are known and predefined.
Off-policy evaluation (OPE) in reinforcement learning is notoriously difficult in long- and infinite-horizon settings due to diminishing overlap between behavior and target policies. In this paper, we study the role of Markovian and time-invariant structure in efficient OPE. We first derive the efficiency bounds for OP…
The paper studies OPE with missing data, showing bias under nonignorable missingness and proposing a solution.
problem Estimating value of a target policy from logged data with missingness.
method Investigates OPE with monotone missingness, proposes an IPW value estimator, and conducts statistical inference.
result Value estimates remain unbiased under ignorable missingness but can be biased under nonignorable missingness.
VA-OPE improves OPE by incorporating variance information, achieving tighter error bounds.
problem Estimating value function of a target policy from offline data collected by a behavior policy.
method Proposes VA-OPE, an algorithm that reweights Bellman residual using estimated variance of the value function.
result Achieves a tighter error bound than the best-known result.
This paper reviews off-policy evaluation methods in reinforcement learning.
problem Efficiency and accuracy of off-policy evaluation methods in reinforcement learning.
method Discussion of existing OPE methods, their statistical properties, and related research directions.
result Efficiency bounds and state-of-the-art OPE methods in reinforcement learning.
One of the core problems in statistical models is the estimation of a posterior distribution. For topic models, the problem of posterior inference for individual texts is particularly important, especially when dealing with data streams, but is often intractable in the worst case. As a consequence, existing methods for…
Proposes DR algorithms for distributionally robust off-policy evaluation and learning.
problem Sensitive to environment distribution shifts in offline observational data.
method Doubly robust and distributionally robust approaches for OPE/L.
result Achieves semiparametric efficiency and fast regret rate.
STAR framework reduces OPE variance by distilling complex problems into discrete ARPs.
problem High variance and bias in off-policy evaluation methods.
method STAR framework that includes various OPE estimators and leverages state abstraction.
result Predictions from ARPs estimated from off-policy data are asymptotically correct.
Develops a method to evaluate OPE robustness to hyperparameters and policies.
problem Difficulty in selecting and tuning OPE estimators due to limited experimental evaluations.
method Introduces IEOE (Interpretable Evaluation for Offline Evaluation) to assess robustness.
result Demonstrates improved evaluation of OPE estimators' reliability.
OPERA blends multiple OPE estimators to evaluate new policies offline.
problem Lack of reliable offline policy evaluation methods for new policies.
method Adaptive blending of multiple OPE estimators without explicit selection.
result Consistent and reliable policy evaluation framework for offline RL.
New private algorithms for online learning improve regret in high privacy regimes.
problem Private online learning from experts and convex optimization.
method Transformed lazy algorithms for differential privacy.
result Improved regret bounds for DP-OPE and DP-OCO.
Paper develops IV method for consistent OPE in confounded MDPs.
problem Confounding variables in observational data affect OPE effectiveness.
method Instrumental variable approach for consistent off-policy evaluation.
result IV method enables correct identification of target policy's value.
Paper tackles policy selection in offline RL without hyperparameters.
problem Selecting between policies and value functions in offline RL.
method Designs hyperparameter-free algorithms based on BVFT for policy selection.
result Demonstrates effectiveness in discrete-action benchmarks like Atari.
The paper studies calibration in ML models for wireless networks, showing key theoretical and practical insights.
problem Ensuring ML models in wireless networks deliver well-calibrated confidence scores for reliable decision-making.
method Theoretical analysis and simulation-based experiments using Platt scaling and isotonic regression.
result Well-calibrated models improve the system's minimum achievable OP and are part of a broader class of predictors.
A new causal deepset framework improves off-policy evaluation under complex interference.
problem Handling spatio-temporal interference in off-policy evaluation.
method Permutation invariance assumption and novel algorithms incorporating it.
result Significantly more precise estimations than existing methods.
Robust OPE framework uses human inputs to improve policy evaluation in changing environments.
problem Inaccurate policy evaluations due to shifts in environment properties.
method Adapts OPE methods to shifts on user-inputted covariates, providing more realistic utility estimates.
result Robust OPE framework yields less pessimistic policy evaluations and captures realistic dataset shifts.
In this work, we consider the problem of estimating a behaviour policy for use in Off-Policy Policy Evaluation (OPE) when the true behaviour policy is unknown. Via a series of empirical studies, we demonstrate how accurate OPE is strongly dependent on the calibration of estimated behaviour policy models: how precisely …
New methods improve robust decision-making under uncertainty in off-policy evaluation.
problem Statistical uncertainty and causal considerations in off-policy evaluation.
method Marginal Ratio (MR) estimator, Conformal Off-Policy Prediction (COPP), causal bounds.
result Improved robustness and uncertainty quantification in off-policy decision-making.
BCRL learns a Bellman complete representation for offline RL policy evaluation.
problem Learning a Q-function efficiently from offline data.
method BCRL learns a linear Bellman complete representation directly from data, enabling efficient OPE.
result BCRL achieves competitive OPE error and outperforms FQE in certain scenarios.
Study tackles OPE in confounded settings, estimating policy value from proxies.
problem Difficulty in OPE due to unobserved confounders in infinite-horizon RL.
method Two-stage approach: estimating stationary distribution ratios and combining optimal balancing.
result Policy value can be identified from off-policy data with proxies and latent variable model.
This paper improves sample efficiency for off-policy evaluation with preference data.
problem Improving sample efficiency for off-policy evaluation with preference data.
method Using a deep neural network to learn the value function and leveraging manifold structure.
result Established a provably efficient guarantee for off-policy evaluation with RLHF.
VLBM learns MDP transitions from limited data, improving OPE performance.
problem Limited coverage of state and action space in offline trajectories.
method VLBM uses variational inference with RSA and branching architecture.
result VLBM outperforms existing OPE methods on deep OPE benchmark.
Study proposes new OPE estimators for two-player zero-sum games.
problem Evaluating new policies using historical data from a different policy in multi-player zero-sum games.
method Doubly robust and double reinforcement learning estimators to project exploitability.
result Prove exploitability estimation error bounds and regret bounds for policy profiles.
Off-policy evaluation (OPE) in reinforcement learning allows one to evaluate novel decision policies without needing to conduct exploration, which is often costly or otherwise infeasible. We consider for the first time the semiparametric efficiency limits of OPE in Markov decision processes (MDPs), where actions, rewar…
New method for evaluating and learning in complex decision-making scenarios.
problem Evaluating and learning from policies in contextual combinatorial bandits with high bias and variance.
method Factored action space decomposition and importance sampling-based estimator (OPCB).
result OPCB achieves superior performance in OPE and OPL compared to conventional methods.
Perry uses auxiliary data to estimate RL policy values with confidence intervals.
problem Leveraging auxiliary datasets for off-policy evaluation with uncertainty quantification.
method Two methods for constructing valid confidence intervals for OPE with data augmentation.
result Methods consistently produce confidence intervals covering ground truth policy values.
Paper introduces DQPOPE for estimating return distributions in reinforcement learning.
problem Estimating the entire return distribution from off-policy data.
method Deep quantile process regression for distributional off-policy evaluation.
result DQPOPE achieves statistical advantages by estimating full return distribution with same sample size.
New method reduces bias and variance in OPE for large action spaces.
problem High bias and variance in OPE for large, combinatorial action spaces.
method Factored action spaces and decomposed importance sampling.
result Decomposed IS estimators have less variance than non-decomposed versions.
Paper addresses off-policy evaluation and learning with covariate shift.
problem Evaluating and training a new policy using historical data with a covariate shift.
method Derives efficiency bounds and proposes doubly robust estimators for OPE and OPL under covariate shift.
result Proposes estimators for off-policy evaluation and learning under covariate shift.
This paper explores how IV methods can improve Q-function estimates in offline policy evaluation.
problem Confounding in estimating Q-function using reinforcement learning.
method Integrates IV techniques into offline policy evaluation (OPE) to improve Q-function estimates.
result State-of-the-art OPE methods are closely matched in performance by some IV methods.
This study optimizes offline reinforcement learning methods for various tasks without rewards.
problem Optimizing offline reinforcement learning for multiple tasks without rewards.
method Designing a new model-based approach with singleton absorbing MDPs to achieve optimal convergence rates.
result Achieved optimal convergence rates for offline reinforcement learning in various settings.
Paper addresses offline policy evaluation in RL, achieving near-optimal bounds for various policy classes.
problem Evaluate all policies in a class simultaneously for offline RL.
method Uniform convergence in OPE for various policy classes, achieving optimal episode complexity.
result Achieves optimal episode complexity of O(H^3/d_mε^2) for identifying ε-optimal policies.
New framework for evaluating ad auctions using stochastic modeling.
problem Challenges in evaluating deterministic ad auctions.
method Repurposed bid landscape model to approximate propensity scores, enabling robust OPE estimators.
result Remarkable alignment with online A/B test results, achieving 92% MDA in CTR prediction.
Paper tackles policy selection with logged data and limited online interactions.
problem Safe evaluation and deployment of offline reinforcement learning policies.
method Active offline policy selection combining logged data with online interaction.
result Improves upon state-of-the-art OPE estimates and pure online policy evaluation.
Extends OPE to evaluate policies using diverse logging data.
problem Evaluate policies using log data from different policies.
method Develops an OPE method for various logging policies.
result Method's predictions converge to true performance as sample size increases.
A new estimator reduces variance in slate bandit OPE.
problem Large action spaces in slate bandits cause high variance in OPE.
method Develops Latent IPS (LIPS) to optimize slate abstractions for low variance and bias.
result LIPS substantially outperforms existing estimators in scenarios with non-linear rewards and large slate spaces.
Unified Bayesian framework for efficient off-policy evaluation and learning in large action spaces.
problem Efficient off-policy evaluation and learning in systems with correlated actions.
method Unified Bayesian framework with structured priors and sDM approach.
result sDM leverages action correlations without compromising computational efficiency.
This study uses OPE methods to quickly assess auction policies.
problem Rapid decision-making in dynamic auction environments.
method Off-Policy Evaluation and counterfactual methods.
result Improved policy selection and optimization.
Improves off-policy evaluation with imperfect annotations.
problem Limited dataset coverage for evaluating new policies.
method Doubly robust estimators combining IS and DM, incorporating counterfactual annotations.
result Using annotations within the DM component yields the most desirable theoretical results.