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A locally-built, LLM-digested index of recent arXiv papers in quant finance, geometry/topology, and statistical ML — keyword search served straight from SQLite on this machine.

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154309463617 · Jun 202019922001200920172026
48 results for policy analysis

Minimal assumptions analysis of Q-learning with time-varying policies.

problem Finite-time analysis of Q-learning with time-varying policies for discounted MDPs.
method Minimal assumptions, Poisson equation decomposition, sensitivity analysis.
result Established convergence rate and sample complexity for Q-learning.

The paper tackles personalized policy learning from diverse data sources in a federated setting.

problem Learning personalized decision policies from observational bandit feedback across multiple heterogeneous data sources.
method Introduces a novel regret analysis for distinguishing global and local regret, and presents a federated policy learning algorithm using local policies trained with doubly robust offline policy evaluation strategies.
result Establishes finite-sample upper bounds on global and local regret, characterizing them by source heterogeneity and distribution shift.

Analyzes how economic policies affect wealth distribution in Bitcoin token economy.

problem Impact of economic policies on wealth distribution in token economies.
method Eliminated noise in wealth distribution data using macroeconomic and microeconomic time series. Causality analysis between BIPs and wealth distribution data.
result Proposed a structure for economic policy taxonomy in token economies.

Paper analyzes convergence of dynamic policy gradient for MDPs, improving performance in finite-time problems.

problem Optimal policies in finite-time MDPs are not stationary and require epoch-specific training.
method Introduces dynamic policy gradient combining dynamic programming and policy gradient, analyzes convergence for softmax parametrisation.
result Dynamic policy gradient training exploits finite-time structure, leading to better convergence bounds.

Classifies privacy policy segments for better user understanding.

problem Difficulty in understanding privacy policies due to legal jargon.
method Uses machine learning and deep learning techniques to classify privacy policy segments.
result Identifies data practices in privacy policies for better user comprehension.

Reduces policy space complexity for reinforcement learning.

problem Efficiency in exploring vast policy spaces in reinforcement learning.
method Uses Rényi divergence and l1l_1 norm to determine sample size for accurate policy approximation.
result Established error bounds for sample size requirements in model-based and model-free settings.

Study shows certainty equivalent policy minimizes regret in continuous-time systems.

problem Minimizing regret in continuous-time stochastic linear-quadratic systems.
method Theoretical analysis of randomized certainty equivalent policy.
result Establishes square-root of time regret bounds and linear scaling with parameters.

Study on policy gradient for stochastic bandits using diffusion approximation.

problem Improving policy gradient methods for stochastic bandits with optimal regret bounds.
method Continuous-time diffusion approximation of policy gradient with learning rate analysis.
result Proved optimal regret bound of O(klog(k)log(n)/η)O(k \log(k) \log(n) / η) for η=O(Δ2/log(n))η= O(Δ^2/\log(n)).

SARSA is an on-policy algorithm to learn a Markov decision process policy in reinforcement learning. We investigate the SARSA algorithm with linear function approximation under the non-i.i.d.\ data, where a single sample trajectory is available. With a Lipschitz continuous policy improvement operator that is smooth eno…

2019-02-06abs ↗pdf ↗

The paper tackles robust policy learning from multiple data sources.

problem Learning a policy that generalizes across diverse settings from multiple heterogeneous data sources.
method Proposes a minimax regret optimization objective and a policy learning algorithm combining doubly robust offline policy evaluation and no-regret learning.
result Achieves minimal worst-case mixture regret up to a moderated vanishing rate of the total data across all sources.

Study finds strict collection policies improve portfolio quality of microfinance banks.

problem Improving portfolio quality of microfinance banks through better credit collection policies.
method Multi-stage sampling, regression analysis, descriptive statistics.
result Collection policy has a higher effect on portfolio quality.

Policy iteration is a family of algorithms that are used to find an optimal policy for a given Markov Decision Problem (MDP). Simple Policy iteration (SPI) is a type of policy iteration where the strategy is to change the policy at exactly one improvable state at every step. Melekopoglou and Condon [1990] showed an exp…

2019-11-28abs ↗pdf ↗

Research shows SBP's tone impacts stock market returns positively or negatively.

problem Impact of State Bank of Pakistan's monetary policy communications on stock market.
method Sentiment analysis and high frequency stock market returns analysis.
result Positive or negative tone in SBP communications affects stock returns positively or negatively.

Direct contextual policy search methods learn to improve policy parameters and simultaneously generalize these parameters to different context or task variables. However, learning from high-dimensional context variables, such as camera images, is still a prominent problem in many real-world tasks. A naive application o…

2016-11-10abs ↗pdf ↗

Sharp policy value estimation for contextual bandits with unobserved confounders.

problem Estimating policy value under unobserved confounders with sensitivity analysis.
method Kernel method to approximate conditional moment constraints, leveraging f-divergence.
result Sharp lower bound of policy value, avoiding coarse relaxation of uncertainty set.

Policy gradient algorithm with variable learning rates achieves near-optimal performance in multi-arm bandit problems.

problem Optimizing a policy gradient algorithm for multi-arm bandit problems with variable learning rates.
method Applied Foster-Lyapunov techniques to analyze a Markov chain formed by the state of the algorithm.
result The policy gradient algorithm converges to the optimal arm with logarithmic or poly-logarithmic regret.

Paper extends quantile factor analysis with probabilistic methods for better economic policy and financial condition prediction.

problem Improving accuracy in economic and financial condition prediction.
method Probabilistic quantile factor analysis with regularization and variational approximations.
result The probabilistic estimator outperforms a recent loss-based estimator in many cases.

The paper analyzes the intrinsic exploration terms in policy-gradient algorithms.

problem Exploration in policy-gradient algorithms and its impact on policy optimization.
method Numerical optimization criteria and stochastic gradient analysis.
result Exploration techniques improve policy optimization by smoothing the learning objective and modifying gradient estimates.

We consider the problem of learning a policy for a Markov decision process consistent with data captured on the state-actions pairs followed by the policy. We assume that the policy belongs to a class of parameterized policies which are defined using features associated with the state-action pairs. The features are kno…

2017-01-21abs ↗pdf ↗

Improved off-policy selection and learning in contextual bandits with better guarantees.

problem Selecting or training a reward-maximizing policy using data from a fixed behavior policy.
method A betting-based confidence bound applied to an inverse propensity weight sequence for off-policy selection, and a freezing condition for off-policy learning.
result The proposed methods achieve significantly improved guarantees over prior work, especially in small-data regimes.

Paper analyzes NAC with neural networks for efficient policy optimization.

problem Improving sample and iteration complexity in policy optimization.
method Entropy regularization, averaging, neural network approximation, and optimization techniques.
result Entropy regularization and averaging ensure stability and sharp sample complexity bounds.

Investigates optimal pension policies in PAYG systems with forward utility and ageing population.

problem Optimal investment and pension policies in PAYG systems with sustainability and adequacy constraints.
method Non-zero volatility forward CRRA utilities, closed-form optimal policies, detailed numerical analysis.
result Characterization of optimal policies and detailed impact analysis under various scenarios.

Framework learns robust control policies from expert demonstrations.

problem Adversarial robustness and closed-loop generalization in feedback control policies.
method Lipschitz-constrained loss minimization for certified robustness and generalization.
result Finite sample bound on policy learning error and robust closed-loop stability.

New analysis improves sample complexity for vanilla policy gradient methods.

problem Improving sample complexity guarantees for vanilla policy gradient methods.
method Adapting tools from SGD analysis to policy gradient methods, with smoothness and gradient approximation assumptions.
result Established improved sample complexity bounds for convergence and global optimum.

Policy gradient methods with aggregated states can achieve better performance than approximate policy iteration.

problem Approximation errors in policy and value function approximations.
method State-aggregated representations and policy gradient methods.
result Policy gradient methods can achieve a per-period regret bounded by ε, while approximate policy iteration and value iteration have a higher regret.

Improves pre-trial risk assessments by making them safer without changing existing rules.

problem Improving pre-trial risk assessments while maintaining deterministic rules.
method Developed a maximin robust optimization approach to find a safer policy.
result Can safely improve certain components of the risk assessment instrument.

Many reinforcement learning applications involve the use of data that is sensitive, such as medical records of patients or financial information. However, most current reinforcement learning methods can leak information contained within the (possibly sensitive) data on which they are trained. To address this problem, w…

2019-02-01abs ↗pdf ↗

This work analyzes the gap between off-policy and on-policy policy gradient methods and provides conditions to reduce this gap.

problem The gap between off-policy and on-policy policy gradient methods and conditions to reduce it.
method Theoretical analysis and empirical evidence of conditions to reduce the on-off gap.
result Conditions to reduce the on-off gap between off-policy and on-policy policy gradient methods.

New algorithm reduces regret in sequential decision-making problems.

problem Balancing exploration and exploitation in online sequential decision problems.
method Variational Bayesian optimistic sampling (VBOS) for optimizing policies.
result VBOS achieves ildeO(AT) ilde O(\sqrt{AT}) Bayesian regret for stochastic multi-armed bandits.

Off-policy learning in dynamic decision problems is essential for providing strong evidence that a new policy is better than the one in use. But how can we prove superiority without testing the new policy? To answer this question, we introduce the G-SCOPE algorithm that evaluates a new policy based on data generated by…

2015-02-11abs ↗pdf ↗

Designs a single policy for collecting data to train near-optimal policies.

problem Engineering overhead in deploying minimax procedures for stochastic linear contextual bandits.
method Designs a single stochastic policy to collect data from which a near-optimal policy can be extracted.
result The designed policy can collect data from which a near-optimal policy can be extracted.